


I Don’t Want Pity, Just a Safe Place to Hide

by Livewire94, raiining



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anxiety, Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley's Fall (Good Omens), Gentle Dom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hand Feeding, Learning to be Loved, Light BDSM, M/M, Post-Canon, flower shop, heretical probably, not an au, top!aziraphale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:49:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22387474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livewire94/pseuds/Livewire94, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiining/pseuds/raiining
Summary: In which Crowley is anxious, wards are discussed, a Fall is examined, and a certain demon decides it’s a good idea to open a flower shop…
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 114
Kudos: 320
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> What a ride! It’s been so much fun to do my first Big Bang. Kudos to the Horsemen for all their hard work and for answering my bizarre questions. HUGE THANKS to my artist Livewire94 for her amazing art and spelling help. MASSIVE THANKS to my wonderful beta nied whose ready this through a million times and generally made it five times better. THANK YOU TEAM! You’re the absolutely best 
> 
> Note: the title comes from the Queen song "Mother Love"

Crowley’s tired.

He’s never been this tired before, not in the fourth century, not in the fourteenth century. He’s so tired he should be having a hard time keeping his eyes open, should be struggling not to fall asleep, should be yawning and saying things like _Satan’s balls, I could go for a nap_ and _Ciao, angel._

But he doesn’t. Sleep is the furthest thing from his mind. He’s tired, he’s sore, he’s fragile in a way he can’t remember ever feeling before, but closing his eyes? Looking away? Is unimaginable, and yesterday Crowley’s imagination kept a molten mass of rubber and steel convinced it was a fully functioning automobile for nearly sixty miles. So, yeah. Crowley can imagine quite a bit. 

“But the hall was rather crowded that night, do you remember? So we can’t judge the performance by that measure.”

Crowley’s long since lost track of the conversation. He’s been doing a good job of nodding along. He says ‘uh huh’ and hums and makes irritated faces when the pitch of Aziraphale’s voice has faltered, since experience has taught him Aziraphale faltering leads to long silences leads to awkward throat-clearing leads to Aziraphale leaning back and saying things like ‘Oh, look at the time, I’ve got to open the shop early tomorrow,’ and ‘Those books won’t inventory themselves, you know.’ Crowley suspects he isn’t physically capable of making the appropriate response to that — which is putting his hands in his pockets and looking like he doesn’t care and then, eventually, walking away — so he searches blindly for something to say. What were they talking about anyway? Mozart? He picks up his wine glass. “Yeah, but Vienna didn’t have the best crowds to judge by.”

Aziraphale frowns. 

Crowley fumbles his wine. “I mean, uh — Hamburg?”

Aziraphale’s concerned face doesn’t smooth away. Shit. “Oh, Crowley,” his angel says. “I should have realized.” He sits up and reaches across the table. Crowley has three heart attacks and a stroke before Aziraphale pats his hand. The angel doesn’t notice. “You’re exhausted, and here I am nattering on. You probably want to get some sleep.”

“No!” Crowley says too loudly. A woman at the next table looks over, and he glares at her. “No,” he says again. “I’m fine.” He looks over the table. Aziraphale’s plate is empty, only the faintest outline of chocolate left. Did he have a mousse? Or maybe it was ice cream. “Why don’t you get another desert? Or champagne? We should order more champagne.”

He expects Aziraphale to look interested — he very rarely takes any convincing to have a second dessert — but instead he shakes his head and pushes back from the table. “No, I think we’ve trespassed long enough. They’ll be switching over to the dinner menu soon.” He plucks his napkin from his lap and drops it onto the table before Crowley’s molasses-soaked brain can come up with some way to stop him. “Let’s call for the bill.”

“No, Angel — ” Crowley tries. He has to say _something_. But Aziraphale’s palm is still on his hand and everything is both too close and too far away. “I can’t sleep.”

Aziraphale’s face falls. 

Crowley realizes what he’s just said. “What I mean is, I don’t _want_ to sleep. That’s what I mean.”

“Of course, my dear,” Aziraphale says. He looks far too kind now. His eyes are a liquid blue. “In that case, let’s have some champagne, but not here. Come on.” He stands up. “I have several bottles waiting at the bookshop.”

Crowley wets his lips. The bookshop. He doesn’t want to go back to the bookshop. He’d rather stay at the Ritz forever. The Ritz makes sense to him. The Ritz has never burned.

But Aziraphale’s already getting to his feet and straightening his jacket and Crowley won’t _— can’t —_ let him walk away without following. And of course Aziraphale wants to look over his bookshop. Crowley’s surprised he let them linger over the meal as long as he did. “Fine,” he growls and signals for the waiter. 

The young man walks over and unobtrusively slides them the bill. Crowley takes it with a huff. He doesn’t bother to tip because Aziraphale always takes care of that, always drops just the right amount of money onto the table with a smile and a ‘best of luck to your mother, I do hope she’s feeling better soon.’ Usually, Crowley would walk ahead to collect their jackets and stand impatiently by the door while Aziraphale takes his time, smiling and nodding to everyone, too familiar even for a regular but with a kindness to his expression that ensures nobody really minds.

Crowley can’t do any of that today. He can’t look away from Aziraphale, can’t hold their things. All he _can_ do is stick close. He signs the bill and stands, staying just to Aziraphale’s left, close enough that he could jump forward if anything happened. It’s a ridiculous bit of paranoia, Crowley knows better than anyone how useless he’s been at defending his angel, but when he tries to step back, he can’t.

Aziraphale, the daft angel, doesn’t seem to mind. Instead he turns to smile at Crowley. “This way, my dear.”

He’s equally unable to pretend the endearment doesn’t make him feel warm inside. He’s got a lump of ice in his chest where God’s love used to be, but a smile or a look from his angel always manages to light a match in that freezing space. “Sure, angel,” he says, his voice a rasp. “Lead the way.”

The doorman at the Ritz smiles at them. Crowley stays at Aziraphale’s heels, guarding him, but once they walk onto the street it’s impossible for him to remain close. They have to stop and twist around people, avoid doors and dogs and reversing lories. Even a demon and an angel can’t walk down the streets of London in lockstep without holding hands, and they haven’t done that in centuries, not since hand-holding went out of style between gentlemen. Crowley glances over anyway but Aziraphale has his fingers clasped together over his chest. They’re restless, tapping every so often against each other, but certainly unavailable.

Crowley shakes his head. For all his vaulted powers of imagination, he can’t quite picture himself reaching over and _taking Aziraphale’s hand_.

“Though speaking of Vienna,” Aziraphale says, as if there weren’t a dozen words and a hundred steps between where they are now and their last conversation, “the crowds were lovely there. I quite prefer the an der Wien opera house, I must say, though I know you helped build the Volksoper.”

Crowley shakes his head. “I only lent Müller-Gutenbrunn the gulden he needed. Wasn’t my fault he lost everything.” 

Aziraphale hums an incommital noise. “I quite liked _Salome.”_

Crowley grunts. “Bloody Wilde.”

It’s a familiar conversation. Crowley won’t let Aziraphale know how much it grounds him to rehash it while walking the mile from the Ritz back to Soho, though he suspects the angel knows. It’s a twelve minute walk in good traffic. Evening is coming on so it takes them almost twenty. Conversation falters when there’s a ruckus from a passing lorry, and Crowley realizes he’s started counting his footsteps in that absent-minded way he does sometimes _, eleven twelve thirteen fourteen,_ ticking along in the back of his mind. He forces himself to stop. Aziraphale is wrong about Choplin, anyways and telling him so takes them the last two blocks.

“So, champagne?” Crowley asks the moment they step into the bookshop. He’d started counting again after he hesitated, just for a second when the sign had come into view, not enough to mean anything, not enough for Aziraphale to notice. He forces himself to stop. _One two three_ steps to the sofa. 

No.

Crowley sits down to stop his feet from moving and then throws them over the arm of the sofa because he can. “Do you have any Kurg Brut?”

Aziraphale’s ceaseless chatter peters off. He takes off his jacket and hangs it on the hook. “Hm? Oh, I’m not actually sure. Let me check?”

Crowley nods before he realizes what that will mean — Aziraphale leaving his direct line of sight to walk into the back room. “Wait,” he calls out, too fast. “Never mind. Whatever you’ve got behind the counter will do.”

“Oh, I wasn’t going to check,” Aziraphale says, sounding startled. “I was going to, you know — ” He lifts a hand and twirls it, indicating his angelic senses _, “check.”_

“Oh,” Crowley says, mollified. Is he being too obvious? He’s being too obvious. “Right. Sorry.”

Aziraphale takes his favourite armchair in the corner. His eyes have gone slightly unfocused. “Hmm,” he says, “only some Perrier Jouet, I’m afraid.”

“That’s fine,” Crowley says. His heart is still pounding — stupid thing. It’s not like he needs it. “Bring it here. We don’t even need glasses.”

The bottle appears in Aziraphale’s hands. “Oh, please,” the angel sniffs. “We’re not _animals.”_ He miracles them champagne flutes and pours with the practice of one who has done this hundreds upon hundreds of times. “Cheers, my dear.”

Crowley takes the flute and finds himself smiling at Aziraphale. “Cheers.” 

_To the world_ echoes between them, unsaid. Or maybe it’s just Crowley.

They sit in silence and sip for a while. The light in the bookshop gradually dwindles. Crowley feels himself start to relax. He looks around.

The bookshop is... the bookshop. Whatever happened yesterday, it’s still here. The faint acrid smell of smoke lingers only in his imagination. He’s fine.

He’s fine until there’s an unexpected rustling from the front room. Suddenly Crowley is off the sofa and crouching in front of Aziraphale, snarling, one hand hooked in front of his face in a half-completed warding gesture, Hellfire riding up the sleeve of his coat. “Who’s there?”

There’s a horrible, heart-pounding pause, and then the squeak and rustle of a rat. It appears from around the corner, marching towards them on stiff little legs commanded by Crowley’s power. 

Crowley snarls at it. Nothing else follows. There’s a tug on the back of his coat.

“It’s a rat, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. His voice is smooth, soft, and a little bit tense. “Just a rat.”

Crowley doesn’t stand up from his crouch. His eyes track. There _is_ a rat, yes, but there could also be — there could also be — 

Nothing. 

No one. 

Just a rat.

“Right,” Crowley says. His voice sound wrecked. He straightens. Something swims in front of his eyes and _fire! What’s on fire? Where’s — ?!_ Except it’s him, of course. Of course it’s him. It’s Hellfire.

He puts it out instantly. Fuck, what was he thinking conjuring Hellfire around Aziraphale?

The tugging on his coat has gotten stronger, and now Aziraphale’s fingers catch on the edge of his sleeve. Crowley realizes that he’s swaying back and forth. “My dear boy,” Aziraphale says, standing far too close. “It’s quite alright. We’ve had a trying day, a trying week — a trying decade, really! I think you should rest.”

“No,” Crowley says. His head is shaking. Or is that the rest of him? Aziraphale’s hand on his arm feels like the only thing holding him together. “I’m fine.”

Aziraphale’s voice firms. “You most certainly are _not.”_

Crowley knows he can turn around and look at him. He knows that exposing his back to the rat isn’t dangerous, that there’s nobody else there. “But what if — ” he starts. Makes himself stop. “I can’t.” Shit. “I mean, I’m a demon. I don’t _need_ to sleep.”

“Perhaps not,” Aziraphale admits, “but you certainly have gotten used to it.”

Crowley snarls. “So this is _my_ fault now?”

“Oh, dear.” 

Crowley immediately feels awful. He’d turn to comfort his angel but what if they came for him while he was looking away? 

_This is stupid_ , Crowley thinks, his eyes still on the door. _I’m being stupid. They aren’t coming for him. I know they aren’t coming for him. They’re going to leave us alone. They said they would._

“They did,” Aziraphale agrees.

Crowley snaps his mouth shut. Fuck, did he say that out loud?

“I have wards,” Aziraphale goes on hesitantly. 

Crowley grits his teeth but shakes his head. “They won’t work against angels.”

“You’re right, of course,” Aziraphale admits. They exist in silence for a moment, and then Aziraphale says, “How about this then?” and there’s another tug on Crowley’s jacket. It’s more insistent this time and Crowley finds himself giving into it, backing up a step. The tug repeats itself and he steps again, and then again, until the back of his knees hit the armchair Aziraphale had been sitting on and his legs fold in on themselves, dumping him onto the floor.

“Wha—?” Crowley splutters as his arse hits the worn wood. It surprises him enough that he looks back and he’s shocked by the view of Aziraphale from this angle, just slightly above him, blushing and looking down.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Aziraphale says. “I meant for you to sit here.” He pats the seat of his armchair awkwardly.

Crowley usually thinks of himself as a demon who can handle anything, but he’s had a hard week. He doesn’t think he could handle sitting in Aziraphale’s lap right now. “No, this is good,” he says, and he’s surprised to find that he means it. It’s relaxing, for some reason, to sit between Aziraphale and the rest of the world. It’s also nice, in a bone-deep way, to sit on the floor in front of him. Aziraphale’s meant to be above him, after all.

“Well, if you’re certain,” Aziraphale says. Crowley’s turned back to the door so he can’t see his face, but he sounds a little strangled. 

“Yeah,” Crowley says. He’s starting to relax again, though he can’t quite stop watching the doorway. “What brought you to Vienna, anyway? To see _Salome_ in 1910?” 

“Oh, well, it’s a funny story actually. Haven’t I told it to you before? It started when a customer mentioned Oscar and — ”

They spend the night like that, Crowley sitting on the floor in front of Aziraphale’s armchair, Aziraphale finding story after story to tell. Crowley doesn’t sleep and Aziraphale doesn’t tell him to try and close his eyes, just lets him sit and sip champagne. The bottle never runs dry but they also don’t get drunk. Crowley uses the bubbles to keep himself awake. There’s a shaky kind of something in his chest that’s soothed by the familiar cadence of Aziraphale’s voice. It keeps the shadows at bay.

The faint taste of smoke still lingers in the back of Crowley’s mind. The champagne helps with that, too.

Dawn breaks eventually and light pours slowly into the bookshop. Crowley watches the shadows run back to their corners from the floor. He knows that he should stand up. He doesn’t really want to, would be perfectly content to spend the rest of his days here at Aziaphale’s feet, but he knows even that is a thought he would usually keep hidden from himself and is proof of his own exhaustion. 

Aziraphale has fallen silent. Crowley leans his head back against the seat of his armchair and waits for the offer to call him a cab home. He knows it’s coming. He doesn’t know what he’ll say when it does. Beg, maybe.

A rotten demon, that’s what he is.

Aziraphale doesn’t say anything for a long time. Eventually, he pats his shoulder. “We can stay here all day if you want to.”

Crowley blinks. He must have heard that wrong. Maybe he’s fallen asleep after all. He tilts his head back to look at Aziraphale. For some reason it’s easier in daylight. “What?”

Aziraphale’s face is kind. It always is but Crowley likes to think there’s a little extra softness in his expression when his angel looks down at him. He’s a greedy demon. He’s never pretended to be anything else. 

“If you’re comfortable here, if you feel safe, then we don’t have to move. We can stay here for as long as you like. For the rest of the day if you want to.”

Oh. That’s — Well. Crowley takes a deep breath in. The taste of smoke is still there but it’s very, very faint. And they could stay here. And he could just sit. And they have the wards — 

But they’re angelic wards. That won’t work against angels. And he’s being stupid, because he _knows_ they aren’t coming for them, not yet.

And yet.

It’s so very, very hard to look away from his angel. He feels as though he’s over a cliff, as though he tripped the moment he saw the bookshop was burning and has been falling ever since. The Bentley, the airbase, Adam — they were just handholds he grasped onto for as long as he could as he plummeted down. 

He’d been sure — so very sure — that they’d break him in Heaven, that they’d be able to see — they _should_ have been able to see; what did it mean that they didn’t? — what he was. The moment he’d seen the Hellfire he’d felt a shock, as though his wings had spread open again, as though they’d caught him. He’d known then that he was going to live. He was going to live, and then what?

Well, then the Ritz. He’d landed at the Ritz, crashed headfirst into the table and Aziraphale had been there waiting for him, holding champagne.

And now Crowley can’t look away from him because the moment he does he’ll lose him. Everything they’ve won, everything they’ve saved, it’ll all be gone if he doesn’t clutch it tight to his chest with both hands.

Crowley shakes his head and throws the rest of the champagne back. “No,” he says. He’s being stupid. It feels good to be stupid, but it’s the demonic kind of the good, the kind that whispers in your ear against your better interest. He should know the difference, he’s a demon after all. “No, let’s go.” He pushes himself to his feet before he can think twice about it. His knees wobble for a moment but they hold. “I’m fine.” 

Aziraphale hasn’t moved. He looks up at Crowley and Crowley has to look away. Aziraphale shouldn’t be looking up at _him._ “If you’re sure.”

“Yeah,” Crowley says. He is. He just also kind of isn’t because now that he’s on his feet, he’s starting to fidget. He takes a step and thinks _one._ Shit. “Yeah, I’m fine. Come on, I’ll buy you breakfast.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, of course.” Crowley always buys his angel breakfast. And dinner. And lunch. He likes to treat him. Aziraphale deserves it. His feet pace a restless arc between the sofa and the window. Dawn has slid into early morning. _Two three four —_ dammit. “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

Aziraphale hums again. “I could eat.”

“Exactly,” Crowley says. He resists the urge to snap his fingers and sticks his hands in his pockets instead. “Let’s go.”

Aziraphale finally — _finally —_ gets to his feet and Crowley manages to chivvy him out the door. They end up on the street. The angel glances around, a slight smile on his face. “You know, I — hmm.”

Crowley looks over at him. “What?”

Aziraphale makes a face. “Oh,” he says, “it’s nothing. It’s just that — ” He smoothes a hand down the front of his shirt. “I just found myself thinking a thought I’ve had before. Only before I’d always stopped myself from thinking it. You know, put it away, pretend it didn’t happen. But now, well, I don’t need to do that anymore, do I?” He swallows and his eyes dart around. “I guess I can just think it now.” 

“Yeah,” Crowley says. There’s a lump in his throat. He thinks about stepping closer to Aziraphale. Doesn’t. “Our side, remember?”

Aziraphale looks at him and smiles. “Yes,” he says, sounding relieved. “Our side.”

Crowley nods jerkily. “So, uh, do you want to tell me about it? The thought you had, I mean.”

“Oh, nothing half so interesting compared to what you’re imagining, I’m sure,” Aziraphale says, blushing slightly. He steps forward and tucks his hand into Crowley’s arm, then starts walking them down the street. Crowley barely manages to keep up with him. Is this — ? Are they allowed to touch now? “Simply that the sunrise is something I would miss were I in Heaven.”

“That — makes sense,” Crowley agrees. He’s very aware of Aziraphale’s hand under his arm. They’ve done this before. They just haven’t done this _recently._ “Not a lot of sunrises in Heaven.”

“Not anymore,” Aziraphale agrees.

Crowley makes a face. “It really has changed a lot, hasn’t it? Used to be fluffy clouds and endless stars. Now it’s that damned tower.” Bright and harsh and cold, he doesn’t say. Even the memory makes him shiver.

“Yes,” Aziraphale says. He tucks a fold of Crowley’s jacket between his fingers. “You never did tell me what went on up there.”

Crowley shrugs and looks away. He hasn’t. Crowley’s heard all about his trial and the Holy Water and Michael, but Crowley hadn’t been able to say much beyond, “Agnes was right,” and, “It was Hellfire.” What had been salvation to him would have been destruction to Aziraphale. He can’t forget the look on Gabriel’s face. He hadn’t wanted Aziraphale to understand how much they hated him.

He still doesn’t.

“‘S fine. Doesn’t matter now anyways, does it?” Aziraphale looks like he’s going to disagree, so Crowley quickens their pace. “Come on, aren’t you hungry?”

He doesn’t actually have a destination in mind, but he’s sure if they walk in one direction long enough they’ll find a tea shop. This is Soho, after all. Sure enough, not thirty steps later Aziraphale is saying, “Ooo,” and tugging on Crowley’s arm until they’ve crossed the street. There is tea and coffee and little croissants and Aziraphale says, “Oh you simply _must_ try this, it’s _divine,”_ while shoving a piece of butter-saturated-something into his hand and, okay, yeah. It’s good.

“Mm,” Crowley says and remembers to chew before he swallows. Aziraphale beams.

They leave the place with a box of six more.

Crowley wants, very desperately, for Aziraphale to touch him again, but Aziraphale is holding the box and already turning in the direction of the bookshop. Crowley can’t help but hesitate. It’s long enough that this time Aziraphale notices.

“My dear, what is it?” he asks, turning back to him. His eyes are doing that relentlessly-kind thing again.

Crowley looks away. “It’s nothing,” he says. “Come on.” He tries to keep on walking. 

“It’s not nothing,” Aziraphale says and the box is suddenly in one hand and the other is on Crowley’s arm. Crowley stops and stares at it. “Talk to me. Please.”

Crowley’s throat dries up instantly. He looks from Aziraphale’s hand to Aziraphale. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out so he shuts it. 

Aziraphale must see the panic on his face because he rolls his eyes. “Oh, for — fine, don’t talk to me. Nod or shake your head in lieu of actual communication.” Crowley’s getting ready to make a face at that but then Aziraphale looks him in the eye and somehow manages to get past the sunglasses, the bastard. “Do you want to go back to the bookshop?”

Crowley’s nod isn’t quick enough. Aziraphale’s hand tightens. “Do _not_ lie to me.”

“I’m not lying,” Crowley croaks, his need to defend himself against the hurt in Aziraphale’s expression outweighing his instincts for self-preservation. Like always. “I love the bookshop, you know I do.”

“But —?” Aziraphale prompts.

“But — ” Crowley’s brain scrambles for something that’s true _,_ just not the truth _,_ “we were in there all morning. It’s nice to stretch my legs.”

Aziraphale purses his lips. He doesn’t look upset, which is the worst thing. He looks concerned. “Is there somewhere else you’d rather go?”

Crowley really does try his best to think about it, but he can’t. The bookshop isn’t safe but then, where is? They’re fucked if anyone does come after them. “Not really.”

Aziraphale hasn’t looked away. “What about your flat?”

“What about it?” Crowley asks. He’s starting to sweat again. Shit. 

“Don’t you want to — ?” Aziraphale starts. 

Crowley interrupts him by striding off. It rips Aziraphale’s hand off his arm and he sort of wants to die but he can’t stand there a moment longer. “Satan’s balls _,_ angel. Hurry up!” 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale shouts from behind him. “Crowley!”

For a moment, Crowley thinks Aziraphale’s tone sounds as panicked as he feels. He stops and glances behind him. Aziraphale is hurrying after him, puffing hard, his face red. Crowley hadn’t realized he’d gotten that far ahead in so short a time. It makes his own heart pound. 

“Sorry,” he says, as soon as Aziraphale catches up. “I’m sorry _,_ I just — ”

They’re almost back to the bookshop. The bakery hadn’t been that far, after all. He can feel the prickle-tingle of Aziraphale’s wards ghosting over his skin. They aren’t as comforting as they used to be. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale snaps. _“_ Really _.”_

“Did you see the new books Adam left you?” Crowley asks desperately. “I know I told you about them, but have you seen them? First editions, I’m halfway sure.”

Nothing distracts Aziraphale quite like new books. The angel still pauses to give him an irritated look, but allows himself to be distracted. “You don’t say?”

Crowley nods and leads the way to the front steps. The wards bend for him the way they always do. “Course.” He’s proud of himself for not flinching when the doors swing open. That’s progress, that’s what that is. “Right this way.”

He hovers until Aziraphale picks up the first book. When he’s ten pages in, Crowley knows he’s well and truly distracted. He backs away. It’s early yet, not even nine o’clock, and the day stretches out before him. It’s the perfect time to put himself in a corner.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he hisses quietly to himself. He’s tucked himself away two stacks back, near enough to see Aziraphale but hopefully not close enough to be overheard by him. “You’re acting like more of a spazz than usual. You’re a fucking disaster, that’s what you are. Get yourself together!” He’s been useless, he has, thrown off his game. Reacting instead of taking action. Well, that stops now. “I need a plan.”

Yes, that’s it. He’s always had a plan before. Holy Water, now that had been a plan — a dangerous one, a pocket nuke hiding behind his da Vinci — but he’d had it. 

What should his plan be? The idea behind the Holy Water had been simple: acquire it, hide it in his flat, throw it at any demon who came close enough to learn about his Arrangement with Aziraphale. Admittedly, steps one and two had been more complicated than he’d expected and step three had damn near killed him, but at least he’d known what to do the day Hastur had told him he was on his way.

And now? Crowley swallows. Well, now he has the opposite problem. He has to know how to go when Aziraphale asks him to leave.

Crowley drops his head onto his chest. It’s coming. He knows that it’s coming. It’s always come up before. Aziraphale allows him to hang out for a little while, drink with him, but eventually he starts to hint that Crowley should leave. He mentions things he needs to do and places he needs to be. Crowley’s always gotten the point before. Aziraphale tolerates his presence at the best of times and this — when he’s sweating and shaking and making an idiot of himself — is hardly the best of times. So, at some point Aziraphale will ask him to leave. What then?

Well, then he’ll leave, obviously. Figuring out how to do that is step two. Step one is to manage to be more than three feet away from Aziraphale without losing his fucking mind. 

Okay then. Crowley sucks in a deep breath. He has a plan.

Over the next few hours Crowley forces his feet to let more space exist between himself and the angel. It’s hard. It’s bloody torment, if he’s honest, but he’s a demon. Torture’s in the job description. Yet if he’s more than ten feet away from Aziraphale, Crowley can’t blink, has to stare, feels like if he looks away for even a second Aziraphale will be gone.

He knows that kind of thinking is illogical. He knows how dangerous it can be. He spent time around Freud, after all. The human had actually gotten him on the couch a couple of times, convinced that he could get to the bottom of Crowley’s assertion that he was a demon if he only dug down deep enough. It was fun until Freud started to ask things like, ‘Tell me about your relationship with your mother,’ and then it got real old real fast.

Still, delusional thinking is delusional. The bookshop is as safe as it can be. Crowley’s not going to be able to stop any angel who comes for them anyway, so thinking he could is just ridiculous, which means standing on the other side of the bookshop and looking away from Aziraphale will result in nothing different than standing closer and _not_ looking away from Aziraphale. Which means that he can look away now, any time.

Annnnny time.

Crowley blinks.

His heart pounds, and he’s taken an unconscious half-step forward, but he’s blinked, and Aziraphale is still there.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asks. He looks up from the book he’s reading and his eyes dart around the shop frantically before they finally land on Crowley. “Oh,” he exhales. He sounds relieved. “There you are.”

Crowly manages a nod. “Not going anywhere, angel.” And isn’t that the damned truth.

“Good,” Aziraphale says, surprising him. Crowley stares. Aziraphale meets his eye for a moment before clearing his throat. “Er, that is, these new books Adam got me are actually halfway interesting. Would you like me to read you some?”

“Sure,” Crowley says, feeling thankful. He almost trips in his haste to lead them both to the back room. It’s only been two days. He can practice stepping away from Aziraphale tomorrow. “You’ll have to start from the beginning, though.”

“Not an issue,” Aziraphale promises. 

Crowley hesitates at the entrance to the backroom. He really — _really —_ wants to sit on the floor again, put his body between the door and Aziraphale, but that would just be giving into his paranoia and he’d lose all the progress he’s made today. So instead Crowley takes his usual place on the sofa. Aziraphale, for his part, sits in his favourite chair. “Here, my dear,” he says. “Listen to this.”

He reads for several hours. Crowley drifts as the story makes pictures inside his head. He’ll read occasionally, here and there when he’s found something worth putting the effort into, but he prefers to watch the story play out in front of his eyes or, best of all, listen to Aziraphale tell it. 

Eventually Aziraphale pauses. Crowley blinks and refocuses on him. Aziraphale has placed a hand in the book, one finger marking his place. 

“What?” Crowley asks.

“Oh,” Aziraphale says. He looks up and over. His smile is shaky. “I was just remembering some of the other times we’ve sat like this, that’s all.”

Crowley smiles and stretches his arms over his head, thinking. “There’s been a few. Most this century, of course, a few times before. I think the first was — oh.” He stops. Looks away. “Pompeii.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says quietly. “I think it was.”

Crowley can’t meet his eyes. Pompeii had been, well. He’d gotten the heads up from Hell about what was going to happen, along with specific instructions to stand aside and take notes. Hastur had thought it sounded hilarious. Crowley had agreed with him because he hadn’t had any other choice, and then he’d found a bar and he’d gotten very drunk, very quickly. He’d seriously considered staying in that bar until the volcano blew, and he hadn’t had a plan for how to get out again afterwards. 

But then Aziraphale had found him. He’d walk in, paid his tab, and taken Crowley back to the place he’d been staying at, weaseling the story out of him before tucking him into bed. Then he’d spent seven days doing what he could to warn people in the city and seven nights sitting in a chair reading to Crowley. 

Keeping him distracted. Keeping him sane.

“You got the word out,” Crowley says quietly. “The human way, with soapboxes on street corners because Heaven wouldn’t let you make a divine announcement, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to help.”

“You told me,” Aziraphale says gently, “and we saved some. There were a few people who listened.” 

Crowley has to shake his head. “Not enough.”

Aziraphale bites his lip and looks down at his book. “Perhaps not. Still, I did like the house there.”

Crowley shrugs. “I guess so.” He looks around. “Now that I think of it, there was a sofa and an armchair there too, wasn’t there? Or, near enough, anyway.”

It’s dim in the backroom but Crowley’s eyesight is good enough to see Aziraphale’s faint blush. “Was there? I hardly remember.”

Crowley watches him for a moment. He’s wondered if Aziraphale knew how much that week meant to him, how close to the edge he’d been. Maybe he had. “Go on then, angel,” he says, nodding to the book in Aziraphale’s hand and settling back into the sofa. “Tell me what happens next.”

It’s a children’s book so it only takes them a few more hours to read it. The sun’s gone down by then but they’re both comfortable, so they find the second book in the series and read that one too. Crowley listens from the couch, reclining in a position that gives him a view of both Aziraphale and the door. Nothing happens. Aziraphale finishes the last page of the second book just as dawn creeps back into the bookshop again. Crowley takes a deep breath and looks up. He’s surprised to realize they missed dinner.

“Well, it feels odd to say this, but breakfast again, angel? I’ll have to treat you to dinner tonight, for sure.”

“Hmm,” Aziraphale says. He’s also watching the light creep back into the bookshop. There’s a look on his face that’s similar to yesterday. Crowley watches it. It’s almost like the look Aziraphale gets when he’s reciting poetry, or when he’s watching humans write. 

It hurts Crowley’s non-existent heart to see it, and it gives him an idea. It takes him a moment to really think about it, to imagine what he wants and what he thinks Aziraphale would like. Finally he reaches behind his shoulder into the shelves for the book he knows he’ll find there.

“Here,” Crowley says, holding the leather bound pages out to Aziraphale. “Use this.”

Aziraphale starts and looks over at him. “What?”

“This,” Crowley says, waggling the book in his direction. He waits until Aziraphale takes it. “I’d conjure you a pen, too, except I know you have a million of those.”

“Hardly that,” Aziraphale demurs, flipping the cover open. It’s blank inside, not even lined, and the parchment is old enough that it looks like it’s been sitting on the shelves since 1815, waiting to be found. “Crowley, what is this?”

Crowley shrugs, uncomfortable. Maybe Aziraphale doesn’t like it. “Just a journal. You had this look on your face like you wanted to write something down. So, you know,” he waves at the pages again. “Write it down.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says. He looks touched. “I’ve heard that’s a good way to get thoughts out of one’s head. Thank you, my dear. That’s incredibly thoughtful.”

Crowley turns away. “‘S fine,” he says. “Whatever.”

He expects Aziraphale to let it go, but the angel’s gaze lingers. 

“What?” Crowley snaps.

“It’s only that, well, as you’ve said, we’re on our own side now.” 

Crowley hunches his shoulders. He’s said it plenty of times. Aziraphale’s not going to deny it again, is he? “Yeah.”

“So — ” Aziraphale’s gaze is careful. “We can do what we like now.” He looks down at the journal. “We can have thoughts, and express those thoughts, and maybe even _act_ on those thoughts, without fear of reprisal.”

Crowley winces. “Yeah.” 

Aziraphale’s expression is kind. “No more reprisal than we’ve already earned, I mean.” He looks down at the book in his hand and chuckles nervously. “Even sitting here with you was something I worried about too often. Now Heaven knows I’ve been consorting with the enemy.” He looks up and smiles. “Stopping the Apocalypse with him, even.”

Crowley can’t help but smile back. “‘Consorting,’ eh?” It’s a long way from fraternizing, at least. 

Aziraphale blushes. “Yes, well.”

Crowley’s smile dims as a thought occurs to him. “It’s just Heaven and Hell, though,” he says. “We still don’t know what — I mean, what _She — ”_

He can’t quite get the words out. Aziraphale seems to pick up on what he means anyway.

“Oh, I don’t think there’s any danger of that,” he says reassuringly. “She’s okay with it, clearly.” 

“Maybe,” Crowley says. He can hear the edge of desperation in his voice. “But you don’t _know_ that, angel. Maybe this is the perfect time to walk away. Maybe you should before you — ”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale interrupts, too gentle. “I’m not going to leave you.”

Crowley has wanted him too, so many times over the millennia and has stopped himself from begging him not to, nearly as many times. “Maybe you should.”

Aziraphale cocks his head at him. “Why?” 

Crowley presses his lips together. “I told you in Pompeii.” 

Aziraphale’s blue eyes remain steady. Crowley wonders if he recalls the mini-shakes, the wine, the aching terror just as vividly as he does. “I told you then and I’ll tell you again now, my dear. I’m not going to Fall for this. I would never.”

Crowley feels a dig of actual pain. “You don’t know that.”

Aziraphale looks at him oddly. “I do, actually.” He looks down at his book again. “Anyway, thank you for the gift, Crowley. I think I’ll have a lot to explore in this.”

“Sure,” Crowley says. He’s on edge now. The impulse to deny the angel’s gratitude is strong, but Aziraphale isn’t wrong. They can make their own choices now. Crowley’s already Fallen and there’s no one to judge if a demon is being polite to an angel anymore. “Fine,” he says, in a quieter voice. “I mean, you’re welcome or whatever.”

Aziraphale looks up at him, surprised, and then he smiles. It’s a very bright smile. 

Crowley allows himself to bask in it for half a second before he looks away. There may be no one to judge, but Crowley’s battered soul can only take so much attention. Still, the freezing space inside of him warms, and it stays warm for a full minute after.

They go out for breakfast. Aziraphale gets waffles and Crowley black coffee. When they’re finished Aziraphale tucks his hand into Crowley’s arm again and, just like that, it’s easy to walk back to the bookshop. Aziraphale goes immediately to the register and sifts under the books to emerge with a thick white novelty pen that makes Crowley groan.

“Really, Angel? That was a joke.”

Aziraphale smiles. “It was a gift from you, my dear.” He turns the pen over and the glitter suspended in water catches the light as it follows gravity down. The bobble letters A-N-G-E-L follow. “I thought it was fitting.”

“I got it at a truck stop in Texas,” Crowley grumbles, ignoring the pleased feeling rising in his chest. He watches Aziraphale settle into his armchair with his pen and new journal. “It’s hardly fitting for a book from the nineteenth century.”

“I think it’s very fitting,” Aziraphale says, uncapping the pen. “Hush now.”

Crowley shakes his head and takes the sofa. He’s still exhausted, mentally, physically — spiritually, probably, who knows? — and it’s relaxing to lie there drifting while Aziraphale writes. 

He writes a _lot._ He doesn’t seem to be able to stop, like once he’s started he just keeps finding new things to say. Crowley’s intensely curious. He keeps his gaze away from Aziraphale, finds it drifting instead between the doorway and the window. He thinks about wards. He’d feel a lot more comfortable if he could add demonic wards to Aziraphale’s angelic inscriptions, except no one has ever combined the two before. The results could be explosive.

That being said, no demon has ever switched bodies with an angel before and lived, so…

They could try. The problem, Crowley thinks as Aziraphale goes _scritch-scritch-scritch_ beside him, is the bookshop. It’s so attuned to Aziraphale now, so full of his presence, that he doesn’t think he could anchor a demonic ward here. He’d need his own space for that and it’d have to be somewhere close. Somewhere where he could overlap the two sets of wards, perhaps.

His eyelids have drifted almost closed but he’s still watching the door. The light in the bookshop has changed. It was bright enough before but it’s getting dimmer again and the shadows are shifting. Eventually Aziraphale looks up. 

“Oh dear,” he says, in that tone Crowley knows well. It’s the I-just-spent-a-day-lost-in-a-book-and-we-weren’t-supposed-meet-up-later? voice. “What time is it? I’m so sorry, my dear boy. I got carried away.”

This time it’s easy to smile. “Not a problem, angel. I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“Oh, _yes,”_ Aziraphale says, happily. “This journal was a very good idea. I admit I feel ten stone lighter. Writing things out really does help put them in perspective _._ You should try it, my dear.”

Crowley makes a face. “Not really my jam.”

“Hmm,” Aziraphale says, looking at him. “Yes, right. Well, we’ll have to find you something else, then, won’t we?”

Crowley scrunches his nose. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Aziraphale says thoughtfully. Then he smiles. “We’ll think of something.”

“Okay,” Crowley agrees. He’s not really sure what they’re talking about. “Come on, why don’t we go out for dinner? It’s late enough.”

Aziraphale glances out the window. “Yes, I suppose it is. Very well. Where would you like to go?”

Crowley rolls to his feet and shrugs, rocking back a little on his heels. “I dunno, anywhere you want. I’m not really hungry.”

Aziraphale nods and stands. He looks at the journal in his hand and then at a side table, and then shakes his head and turns to walk back into the main room of the shop. Crowley finds that he can let Aziraphale get a whole six feet away from him before he starts to get antsy. It’s progress. 

Aziraphale is tucking the journal into one of the drawers under the register when Crowley comes up behind him. The drawer has a lock and Aziraphale turns the key before securing it in his pocket. “There we go,” he says, straightening. He claps his hands together. “Let’s see. Sushi?”

They end up sharing a plate of nigiri at a new shop that’s opened nearby. Crowley had suggested Aziraphale’s usual place where the chef knows him by name, but Aziraphale had shaken his head and murmured something about ‘Not yet, I don’t think.’ Then his fingers had jerked and his new journal had appeared in his hand. He tisked at himself and sent it back, then twisted his hands together in front of him. 

Crowley does his best not to stare at those hands as they eat their meal. It’s hard. Aziraphale’s elegant fingers manipulate chopsticks just as easily as they do knives and spoons. He remembers what Aziraphale had looked like when they’d eaten nigiri in Japan or when he’d first tried imported sushi in America. For all that they’ve had very little extended contact, only a meal or a bottle shared here or there across the planet, six millennia of once-or-twice a century meeting added up.

Of course, they’d met more often in the past two hundred years. Crowley wonders if Aziraphale had worried like he had that their six thousand years were coming to an end. 

After dinner, Crowley turns once again in the direction of the shop. He manages to do so by turning his back on Aziraphale even which he thinks is progress of the highest kind. He stops when he realizes Aziraphale isn’t right behind him, though.

“My dear,” Aziraphale says when Crowley looks back at him. “You know I would stay in my bookshop forever, but isn’t there somewhere else you’d rather go?”

Crowley frowns at him. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just — ” Aziraphale’s hands are twisting together in front of him. “You’ve been so good about indulging me, and you know I could spend the next hundred years tucked away in my little part of Soho, but I’m sure you’re getting anxious about Mayfair. You haven’t even mentioned the Bentley, my dear. You know it’s still parked in front of your flat.”

Crowley swallows the sudden acrid taste of ash. He sees soot and fire and feels the heat of molten metal under his hands. “I know.”

“And it’s just, well, your poor plants. I wouldn’t want them to suffer. Such an absolutely lovely garden you have. I was quite impressed the other day. I know I told you that already, but I was. And if you want to go back to your flat and see to them or your car, well, I’d— I’d understand.”

Crowley’s heart pounds. “No.”

Aziraphale peers at him. “No?”

“No,” Crowley says. His hands shake. His stomach clenches. Panic burns in the back of his throat. “No, I don’t care about the bloody flat. I don’t care about the blasted plants. I don’t care about my _fucking car!”_

He’s shouting now. He clenches his hands into his fists at his sides. Aziraphale stares at him as though he’s lost his mind, and he has. Of _course_ he loves his car, and he tolerates the plants, and, okay, the flat is only a place to sleep, but there are things about it he enjoys, like his da Vinci and his momentos, but he can’t— he can’t go back to them right now. Why doesn’t Aziraphale understand _?_

He sucks in air he doesn’t need. Aziraphale steps in closer and reaches a hand up, putting it on Crowley’s arm. “Darling,” he says.

And Crowley — Crowley breaks _._ He falls. One minute he’s standing on his own two feet, radiating fury, and the next he’s on his knees on the dirty London sidewalk, melted as though he’s been touched by Holy Water. Aziraphale’s hand is still on his shoulder, the only thing holding him together. 

“Oh my dear,” Aziraphale says. “Oh Crowley, oh darling, it’s okay.” 

Crowley is crying now. When did he start? He doesn’t know. He tries to stop but can’t. He’s losing his fucking mind in the middle of Old Comptom Street with wasabi on his fingers and dirt on his knees. 

“Sweetheart,” Aziraphale says. His voice is achingly gentle, more kind that Crowley deserves. He puts both of his hands on Crowley’s shoulders and pulls him forward, encouraging Crowley to rest his head against his thighs. “Darling, it’s okay. I’m here.”

It’s remarkably comforting. Crowley sucks in air and fights back tears, folding into Aziraphale as though he’s a sofa. It’s like being back at the bookstore, actually, sitting on the floor, or at least it is until Aziraphale shifts, crouching down to bring himself to Crowley’s level.

That’s not right. Aziraphale doesn’t belong down here with him. Crowley never meant to drag him Below. 

“No,” Crowley tries. “Don’t. I’m — ” He scrubs a hand over his face. There’s salt on his cheeks. He loves humans but how can they stand this? He’s never been so glad to be wearing sunglasses in his life. “I’m alright, angel. Here, help me up.”

Aziraphale hesitates. “Are you — ?”

“Yes, I’m bloody sure,” Crowley says and waves his arm. Aziraphale stands and pulls him up, as Crowley knows he would. Crowley gives himself a second to let the dizziness pass. God — Satan — _Somebody,_ he’s a mess. He looks a right wreck, he does.

“Fine, let’s go to the stupid flat,” he says, his voice gruff, “but you’re coming with me.”

“Of course, my dear,” Aziraphale murmurs. “You know that I — ” He cuts himself off. “I mean, yes. I’ll come with you.”

It isn’t far to walk but Aziraphale hails a cab. Crowley bounces his knee for the entirety of the short ride, that is until they round the corner to his flat and he promptly opens the cabbie door, leans over onto the road, and throws up.

“What the soddin’ hell?” the cabbie yelps. “Mate! You can’t just — !”

The cab slams to a stop. Crowley retches again. He stumbles out of the cab on two wobbly legs and makes it across both lanes of traffic without getting hit which has to be Aziraphale’s handiwork.

“I’m sorry!” he hears the angel stammer behind him. “My friend, he’s very ill. No, not like that — bad party. I’m very sorry. Here — ” Crowley knows Aziraphale is throwing a handful of bills at the man. “Very sorry.”

Then there is the slam of a cab door and hurried footsteps coming towards him. Crowley finds a streetlight and holds on. He still feels sick. The world won’t stop spinning.

“I’m sorry! Oh my dear, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed you, I should have let you go at your own time,” Aziraphale is saying worriedly. There’s the brush of an angelic miracle, a brief _heat-cold-heat_ against his skin, and Crowley knows the worst of the sick has been miracled away. Even his teeth feel clean. “Let’s get you home. Er, to the bookshop. Er, maybe not. Where you would like to go? Anywhere, my dear. Name a place.”

Aziraphale sounds wretched. Crowley looks at him, one eye open in a squint. It’s all that he can manage. “St James,” he rasps. It’s the first location that comes to mind. “Take me to St James.”

There’s the whiff of a miracle, a stronger and longer one this time, and then Crowley is clutching at Aziraphale instead of the streetlamp. He cracks open his other eye.

They’re in St James’s Park. Crowley swallows and looks at Aziraphale. That kind of transportation miracle is hell on the imagination. You have to know exactly where you’re going and exactly how you’ll get there in order to move from one place to another and skip the steps in between. But if there’s one place Aziraphale knows well enough to transport them to, it’s St James’s Park.

“Thank you,” Crowley mutters. Their regular bench is just a step or two ahead of them. If he lets go of Aziraphale, he can probably make it before he falls down.

Aziraphale doesn’t give him the chance. He simply tugs on Crowley’s arm and half carries him to the bench, depositing him there and then saying “No, no, not like that. Come here. Lie down.”

Crowley hesitates, swallowing. Aziraphale looks at him sternly. “Anthony J Crowley,” he snaps. “Come here _.”_

Crowley finds himself on his back with his head in Aziraphale’s lap and his feet dangling off the edge of the bench. He isn’t quite sure how he got here. He’d almost assume a miracle except there’s no way he’d have ever known how to go from standing to lying with his head on Aziraphale’s thighs well enough to miracle it. He can hardly believe it now, and it’s happening.

“There,” Aziraphale says, and his voice is just this side of shaky, enough that Crowley can ignore it if he chooses. “That’s better.”

“Are you sure?” Crowley asks. He can never ignore anything where Aziraphale is concerned. “If you didn’t mean — I can move — I — ”

“Absolutely not,” Aziraphale says, and puts his hands firmly on Crowley’s head. It feels amazing. And then his fingers are digging into Crowley’s hair and oh _God,_ that feels even better _._ “You just stay here with me a minute. No thinking now.”

No thinking is usually impossible for Crowley. His mind is always going a million miles a minute. It’s his defining feature. It's what got him kicked out of Heaven in the first place. But somehow having Aziraphale’s hands on him makes him forget how to string two thoughts together. Those perfectly manicured fingers scratching ever-so-lightly along his scalp has — impossibly — actually shut his brain up.

Equally impossible is that after half an hour his eyelids begin to close for whole stretches at a time. He isn’t sleeping, he isn’t anywhere close, but he’s relaxed enough to consider it. He trusts Aziraphale to watch their backs. The angel is awake, sitting upright on the park bench. He’s watching. They might not be safe but they’re okay.

And they stay okay for hours. At least one, maybe two. The sun is almost down before Aziraphale shifts minutely and says, “Crowley.” His voice low and soft but easily understandable. “I know this is difficult for both of us but I think we need to talk.”

Crowley knows his breathing has hitched. He can feel it, which means Aziraphale must be able to feel it, too. 

“We can take as much time as you like,” Aziraphale goes on. “We can stay here for as long as you need to. If this is a safe place for you, we don’t have to move for the next fifty years, but we do need to talk.”

“It’s not, though,” Crowley finds himself saying. It’s easier to speak with Aziraphale’s hands in his hair. He’s on his side with his back to the bench seat and his head is still on Aziraphale’s thighs. At some point he’d drawn his knees up to his chest. When he looks through the dim of his sunglasses all he can see are the ducks in St James’s Park. “They came for us here before. They could come again.”

Aziraphale hums. Crowley can feel the vibration of it through the fabric of his pants. “They came for us here only because we let them.”

Crowley grinds his teeth together but doesn’t disagree. They’d talked about it, had agreed to meet at the park. They’d thought it a likely spot to get ambushed. He’d hated the entire plan.

“We can go somewhere else if you prefer,” Aziraphale says. “The bookshop, perhaps. It’s warded. Only against demons, I know, but it’s something, at least.” 

Crowley shakes his head. “It’s not enough. I should add demonic wards to your angelic ones. Layer over the two.”

Aziraphale hums again, thoughtful this time. “Do you think we could?”

“Maybe,” Crowley manages. Bloody Manchester, he’s exhausted. “I’ve been thinking about it. Would need an anchor, though.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says. “My anchor is my circle. It’s etched directly into the floor.”

Crowley nods. “I’d have to bring something over.”

“From where? Not Hell, surely?”

Crowley shakes his head. “No, I’ve got — ” He thinks of his throne and his throat closes up. 

“Please, darling,” Aziraphale says. His hands are still stroking through Crowley’s hair. “Use your words for me.”

_Ugh,_ when he put it that way — “At my flat. I’ve got something that’ll work.”

“Okay,” Aziraphale says. His voice is soft. “Do you want to go back there and get it?”

Crowley feels the panic start to build in the back of his throat. “No.”

“Okay,” Aziraphale says. He doesn’t sound judgmental. He doesn’t even sound sad. He just sounds like he’s stating facts. “We’ll leave that for now, then. Even if you did have an anchor you’d need a space that really identified as your own. Would the top floor do?”

The panic fades slightly. Crowley finds himself shaking his head. “No,” he says, “you’ve been there too long. You’re essence has soaked into the entire shop.” It’s not a bad thing.

“Hmm, we’ll have to think of something else, then.” Aziraphale hesitates. “What was the anchor at your place? Or is that too personal a question to ask?”

Crowley sighs. “Don’t think we have personal questions anymore, angel. It was the throne.”

Aziraphale starts. “You have a throne _?”_

“Yeah, in the study. Oh, right, I shut the door when you came over. I didn’t want — ” Ligur. The Holy Water. He has to swallow again. “It’s from Hell.”

He can feel Aziraphale’s frown. “Doesn’t seem like it would match the decor.”

“Eh, Hell’s changed, just like Heaven. You know how it is. Ideas start to spread and take root. You saw it in it’s mouldy phase, used to be more of a burning wasteland with gaudy furniture. Pretty to look at but too hot to sit on, that kind of a thing. I nicked it when things started to go in a more underground direction.”

“Hm, I see,” Aziraphale says. “That does sound like it would be useful. I understand you don’t want to go back to your flat, though.” His voice becomes more hesitant. “Could you tell me why? Is it the throne itself?” 

Crowley tenses again. “Sort of.”

Aziraphale’s hands card through his hair gently. “Crowley.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright.” Talking. Ugh. “It is sort of the problem, a little bit. I mean, the throne is the anchor, right? I’ve tied my wards into it and you know how wards are. They’re just imagination written down. Given form, so to speak.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says. 

Crowley licks his lips. “Right, well — my wards say the usual, _bugger off, you’re not welcome here._ They’ll work against angels right enough but they won’t work — they didn’t work — against demons.”

“Oh, Crowley _._ They came after you there?”

“Yeah,” Crowley rasps. Too smart, that’s what Aziraphale is. “Yeah, they did. After — after — ” His throat closes up again. Aziraphale waits him out, running his fingers in an unending pattern over Crowley’s head. Crowley finally musters up the courage. “After I left you at the bandstand, I didn’t know where to go. I went to the theatre. I got a message from Hastur saying that he was after me. He told me not to run.”

Aziraphale growls, low in his throat. “Did he now?”

“Yeah,” Crowley says. “So I ran, of course.”

“Of course you did,” Aziraphale says. He sounds fond. “Is that — oh no.” He stops. His hands on Crowley’s head still. “That’s when you found me on the street, wasn’t it? When you told me the forces of Hell were after you. Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry.”

Crowley bites his lip and focuses on the ducks in the pond. They look happy. “It’s okay. You didn’t — you wanted — you were still trying to fix things. I was just running away.”

“No, you were protecting yourself,” Aziraphale disagrees. “Exactly as you should have done.” His nails scratch, very lightly, against Crowley’s scalp. He takes a deep breath. “So you went back to your flat?”

“Yeah. I went for the Holy Water.”

Aziraphale sucks in a gasp. _“That’s_ what I felt that night at your apartment. I was so tired, I didn’t think — I thought it was from the lectern, or the tea set I’d bought you that I saw you still have on hand, but that was _Holy Water?”_

Crowley nods. “Feel of it’s changed a little, got a melted demon inside. I poured it into a bucket and balanced it above the door. Oldest trick in the book.”

“That’s what they meant at your trial,” Aziraphale says. “Oh Crowley. I’m so sorry. So very, very sorry.”

Crowley frowns and turns slightly to look up at him. “Why? You don’t have anything to be sorry about. That Holy Water saved my life.”

“I have much to be sorry about,” Aziraphale argues quietly. He stares off into the duck pond, an unhappy flush to his cheeks. “I’m sorry I said no to running away with you in the first place. I’m sorry I gave you the Holy Water because it could have hurt you. I’m sorry I waited for so long to hand it over because you’ve proved now that you needed it, and it must have been a comfort to have it close, knowing it was there, that it was there if they came after you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you to fight the other demons when they came.” 

There’s too much there for Crowley to parse through. He closes his eyes and focuses on the last bit. “I wouldn’t have wanted you there. I almost didn’t make it out.” Aziraphale goes tense again, so Crowley adds, “Besides, you did help me. Your call gave me the idea to use the phone. I wouldn’t have made it back to street level if you hadn’t called.”

“I’ll be thankful for that, then,” Aziraphale says quietly. His hands start moving again. “I’m sorry, my dear. I distracted you, got caught up in my own feelings when I’m supposed to be helping you with yours.”

“‘S okay,” Crowley says. He shifts so he’s on his side again, looking out at the duck pond. It’s easier this time, more comfortable. He’s going to have a hard time letting this closeness go when it’s finally taken away from him. “I’m here to help you, too, you know.”

Aziraphale’s hands feels like a smile. “I do know.” He clears his throat. “Is that why you don’t want to go back to your flat? Because you know that if they came for you once, they could come for you again?”

It makes more sense when Aziraphale says it. “I guess so. My wards didn’t protect me. I knew they wouldn’t, but I — I have a hard time imagining that they could right now.” And the Holy Water. He really, really doesn’t want to go near the Holy Water.

“So they won’t,” Aziraphale finishes. “I understand.” He waits for a moment. “And the Bentley?” 

Crowley tenses. “Last time I saw it, it was a burning wreck,” he says as steadily as he’s able. “Just like the bookshop. I couldn’t — if I sat down in it and smelled smoke I don’t think I could —”

Aziraphale’s finger stutter. “The bookshop?”

Crowley licks his lips. “Yeah, you know? I told you. It burnt down.”

“Yes, but I thought — oh,” Aziraphale says. “The book. That’s right, the book was all burnt. You mean you went _inside?”_

Crowley realizes he’s clutching his knees to his chest. “Well, yeah,” he says. “Didn’t know where you were. Thought you might have been there.”

“Oh, Crowley _,”_ Aziraphale exhales. “What if you’d been hurt?”

“Was just fire,” Crowley says. He pulls at a loose thread on his jeans. “Not like it could have hurt me.”

“It absolutely could have and you know that,” Aziraphale scolds. His hands are moving again. “And the very next day I asked you to dress up as me and go back there again. My dear, I’m so sorry.”

“‘S okay,” Crowley says again. “Had to be done, and I would do it a thousand times over. It worked _,_ didn’t it?”

“Yes, but — ” Aziraphale sighs. “I do wish you’d said something earlier. Does it bother you very much to be inside?”

Crowley thinks of the acrid smell of smoke he’s mostly entirely sure is it in his head. “Not so much.”

Aziraphale’s fingers tighten in his hair. “You’d better not be lying to me.”

“I’m not,” Crowley says, too quickly. Aziraphale relaxes and Crowley immediately misses the tension on his hair. “It’s not that bad now, really. I’ve almost gotten used to it.”

_“_ Almost is not quite what I was hoping for,” Aziraphale murmurs quietly.

Crowley swallows. He looks back at the duck pond. “I’ve been trying to work on it. I know I’ve got to get back to the flat eventually. I’ve probably already overstayed my welcome.” The pit of ice at the centre of his being seems to grow. “I mean,” he says quickly, “I’m a demon so, you know, it’s in the job description. Don’t think you’ll get rid of me that easily, but I wouldn’t — ”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale interrupts. His voice is quiet but achingly sincere. “No, my dear, no. In fact,” he takes a deep breath, “I’ve been worrying about quite the opposite.”

Crowley feels whatever passes for a heart stutter in his chest. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Aziraphale starts. He takes a deep breath. “What I mean is, I really should tell you, Crowley dear, that though I have talked about your flat and the Bentley, I have not been trying to get rid of you. On the contrary, in fact, I have been rather quietly terrified of the day you do decide to leave. You will at some point, I know. My simple life is not your usual style, but the past two days have been, well, they’ve been perfect. For me. Having you with me, being able to see you, knowing you were safe — I cannot describe to you how much I have enjoyed having that.”

Crowley heart stops for a long moment before starting again. Is he dreaming? Is this a dream? “Angel — ” 

Aziraphale hurries on. “I know we’ve only seen each other infrequently in the past and the last eleven years have pushed us to work in closer contact that we usually enjoy — than I enjoy, at least. I will, of course, completely understand when you decide you need some time away from me. You have your own life with your own interests, your beautiful garden, for example, but after everything — after all that we’ve been through — I really can’t imagine letting you out of my sight just yet. Not right now. I’m sorry to say it feels as though I might never be able to.”

Crowley’s heart is going mad now, beating fiercely in his chest. There’s a lump in his throat that he thinks might be joy, except it’s been so long since he tasted it, he’s not quite sure. “Do you really mean that?”

“I do,” Aziraphale says sadly. His hands scratch through Crowley’s hair again. “I’m so terribly sorry. I know it must be frustrating for you. I’m sure you didn’t save the world just to spend it babysitting an angel. I’ll get over it as soon as I can, I promise. I’ve never wanted to be a burden. I just — I beg your indulgence for a little bit longer. A — a year, maybe. A month, at least. A week would be too short, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t — ”

“A year sounds perfect, angel,” Crowley rasps. He raises a hand — he’s shaking like a leaf, but he manages — and finds Aziraphale’s wrist blindly. He wraps his fingers around it and tightens his grip. “Two years. Ten. A hundred. Never ask me to leave again if you can help it.” He squeezes his eyes shut. If he’s careful, he won’t feel the tears leaking out. “I really thought I’d lost you. I can’t bear to be away from you, either. The world wouldn’t have much point for me if there weren’t a you in it.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says. It’s such a soft sound, as much happy as surprised, and before Crowley knows it Aziraphale has wound their hands together until they’re pressing palm to palm, fingers tangled forever. “My dear, that’s exactly how I feel. I couldn’t bear if it you — if you were to leave me. I know I would deserve it. I know you’ve warned me and I know that I’ve refused you — twice! — but I had hoped — I had so very much hoped that I would have a little more time with you before you had to go.”

“‘M not leaving,” Crowley promises. His throat feels like sandpaper. Is this really happening? Could it be a dream? Except Aziraphale’s palm is pressing against his own and Crowley couldn’t have imagined that, not as real as it seems. “I couldn’t even leave in the first place. Didn’t even try, never made it very far. Ended up in a theatre, I told you. I couldn’t go alone. I couldn’t face the stars.”

Aziraphale doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Eventually he bends down and presses a brief, chaste kiss to the back of Crowley’s hand. His voice shakes. “I’m glad.”

Crowley pulls Aziraphale’s hand down and tucks it close against his chest. His eyes burn. The icy centre inside of him stutters as though it can’t quite believe this either. He knows that Aziraphale’s going to take it back. He’s going to pull his hand away and tell Crowley that he didn’t mean it. Any minute now. Any — minute — 

They stay there together until the duck pond glows red in the setting sun. The air turns cool. Crowley doesn’t dare move. He clutches Aziraphale tight and soaks in every moment with him that he can. 

“I suppose,” Aziraphale says, finally, “that if we’re in agreement about staying together than our largest concern is location.” 

Crowley swallows. _Our._ “How so?”

“Well,” Aziraphale says hesitantly, “if I may be so bold, the bookshop, while difficult, does not appear to pose as much of an issue for you as your flat does.”

Crowley scoffs. “Why, because I’ve managed whole days in the bookshop and was sick before we’d even turn the corner to my flat? No clue what gave you that idea, angel.”

“Yes, well,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley can hear the smile in his voice, “what I mean to say is that, if you’re still amenable, you could perhaps — move in — to the bookshop? Except it doesn’t need to be _this_ bookshop,” Aziraphale says, hurriedly. “I could move the shop, to be sure. Location doesn’t matter so much. We’d need to find a big enough space. I do have rather a lot of books, but we could, I don’t know, go looking around London? There must be somewhere else that is — ”

“Angel,” Crowley stops him. He turns onto his back again so he can look up at Aziraphale. He can’t not look at the angel right now. “You’d really do that? You’d move for me?”

Aziraphale looks down at him helplessly. “Of course I would.”

Crowley couldn’t stop himself from smiling if he tried. “You don’t have to do that. I like the bookshop just fine.”

“It’s too quiet,” Aziraphale apologizes, “and stuffy.”

Crowley turns to press a smile into the buttons of Aziraphale’s waistcoat. “I like stuffy. And it’s not really that quiet in Soho.”

“There are quite a few restaurants nearby,” Aziraphale admits. 

“And it’s a quick walk to the British Museum,” Crowley points out. “You like the cafeteria there.”

“I do, rather. And you enjoy the National Gallery, which is also not far.”

“Exactly,” Crowley says, relaxing. “I think it’ll be better if we add some demonic wards, I’m still not sure we could manage it. I’d need my throne and, like you said, a space that resonants as mine, but we can figure that out.”

“How?” Aziraphale asks. “Like you said, I’ve been there too long.”

Crowley hums. “What if we expanded?”

“But how would we go about doing that? We’d need quite a lot of room. You’d need more than your throne, you have all those wonderful things at your flat and, of course, your plants.” 

Crowley laughs. “Of course my plants. You like my plants, do you, angel?”

Aziraphale blushes. “They are very lovely. They, well, they remind me of Eden, actually.”

Crowley blinks hard. “Yeah,” he says with a lump in his throat. “Me too.”

Aziraphale tightens his grip around Crowley’s hand. “I wouldn’t want you to have to consider leaving them behind.”

“I’d never,” Crowley says automatically. He glares in the direction of his flat. “Don’t tell them that, though.”

Aziraphale laughs. “Of course not.”

Crowley looks back up to smile at him. A thought occurs. “Hey, is there still that empty shop beside you?”

Aziraphale frowns. “No, the bookstore is still there — ‘Adam and Eve Books,’ who are they trying to fool? Neither Adam nor Eve were that adventurous.”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “No, not the naughty bookshop, the other one.”

“Oh, the one that used to be an overpriced clothing store? Yes, I think so.”

“A hundred pounds for a pair of jeans is not overpriced, angel,” Crowley feels the need to point out.

Aziraphale purses his lips. “It’s practically highway robbery!”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “You remember highway robbery. There were more pistols involved. Anyway,” he goes on, “I could take that place. It’s got more than enough room. Of course, we’d have to do a little work, knock down the walls between the two shops and look at the flat upstairs, miracle the top floors together. I mean — ” He cuts himself off and peers past Aziraphale’s shoulder, suddenly finding the clouds on that side very interesting. “I know you changed your flat to a second floor for the bookshop and that’s fine, but it’d be nice to have a place to get away from the front door for a while, so, I dunno, maybe — ”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, interrupting him. He squeezes his hand again, until Crowley gives up and looks over. Aziraphale’s smiling. “I think that’s a fabulous idea.”

Crowley swallows. “You do?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says. “That’ll give you plenty of space. Having you right next door alone would be lovely, but actually expanding — taking down the walls and putting the two shops together — oh, I love it. It would keep you near and give you what you need. And I’m perfectly okay with the idea of a flat. I eliminated mine because I wasn’t using it, but if you’re giving up Mayfair I think you more than deserve a space to call your own.”

“It wouldn’t have to be — ” Crowley swallows and holds Aziraphale’s hand tighter to his chest. “It wouldn’t have to be just mine _,_ angel. It could be ours. If you wanted.”

Aziraphale is silent again. Crowley dares to look at him. His angel is blinking hard. “Do you really mean that?”

Crowley wonders if maybe — just maybe — Aziraphale wants this as much as he does. “Of course I do.”

Aziraphale lifts their hands and presses a hard kiss to the back of Crowley’s hand. “Okay,” he says shakily. “Then I think this is the most perfect idea you’ve ever had.”

Crowley smiles faintly. “That means I’m catching up to you. You’re the one who figured out Agnes prophecy, after all.”

Aziraphale smiles. “Maybe, but you’re the one who pulled it off.”

_“We_ were, Aziraphale.”

His angel smiles. “Yes,” he agrees. _“We.”_ He presses another kiss to Crowley’s hand before tucking him in tight. “A whole shop for you and a flat above for us, it sounds wonderful! There will be more than enough room for the throne and I think you should do whatever you like with the space. There are several large wide windows, if I recall. I even think it might have been a florist before it was a clothing store. It would suit the plants very well.” 

“I suppose it would,” Crowley admits. “They’d probably enjoy the extra light.” He frowns. “Not that they deserve it, of course. Got to shape up still. They’ve got a problem going with leaf spots these days.”

“They do not.”

Crowley looks up with a mock glare. “Oh I see how it’s going to be. You just want me to bring my plants so you can spoil them.”

Aziraphale’s hands are still in his hair. “Don’t be jealous, my dear. I fully intend to spoil you both."


	2. Chapter Two

Aziraphale seems perfectly content to stay where they are until the end of days which, really, was last week. Crowley gives himself a little longer to let the reality of what they’ve just said settle into his bones. When it feels like he could maybe actually believe it, he shifts. Having a plan makes it easier. He has an itching now to see the store beside Aziraphale’s, to make sure it’s still empty and, if it’s not, convince whoever’s rented it to bugger off.

Aziraphale takes Crowley’s arm again as they walk back to Soho. It doesn’t throw him off so much this time, though it’s still this shade of  _ too good  _ for Crowley to completely trust that it’s real. At least it’s fully dark outside now. It doesn’t take them long to walk back

It doesn’t even occur to Crowley to count his steps. He’s too distracted by Aziraphale’s presence on his arm and the plans dancing through his head. He’d seen the space beside Aziraphale’s plenty of times before but only ever on his way to the bookshop. Occult recall is perfect but he has to actually be paying attention to remember something in the first place. Still, Crowley thinks it was a decent-sized space with large windows, like Aziraphale has described, and a counter along the back. He’ll have to see.

He’d expected the walk to take longer, but Aziraphale takes them straight there, not even stopping for tea. That tells Crowley more than anything that he’s as excited about this has he can be. “Here we go,” he says happily when the shops are in sight. “Yes, it is still vacant, isn’t it?”

Crowley follows his gaze. The street is lit neon bright but the shop next to Aziraphale’s is dark. The sign above it is blank and the large windows are empty. There’s a thin layer of grime over everything, the soot that still clings to London, even a hundred years after the last peaty fog.

“I can see why a florist tried here,” Crowley finds himself saying. He looks again and realizes he wasn’t wrong. “Lots of light, decent size, plenty of thoroughfare. Wonder why they didn’t make it?”

“I couldn’t say,” Aziraphale admits. “Maybe they did? I’m not sure how long ago it was a florist, to be honest. Perhaps the original owners passed away. There has been so much coming and going over the years, I’m afraid.”

Crowley grins at him. “There would be in over twenty decades wouldn’t there, angel?”

Aziraphale blushes. “Yes, well.” He gestures to the door, which has mysteriously unlocked itself. “Should we go in?”

Crowley nods and steps carefully over the threshold. He pauses, casting his senses over the building but feels nothing but the next-door warmth of Aziraphale’s wards. “No one else is here,” he says for the benefit of Aziraphale. He would be worried about appearing paranoid except Aziraphale’s seen him both crying on his knees and throwing up on the sidewalk already today. Paranoid is somewhere far down the list. “Just us.”

“Hm,” Aziraphale says. Crowley turns to see him casting an eye over the premises. “Yes. Would you like a light, my dear?”

Crowley shrugs. “Sure.”

Aziraphale snaps his fingers and a small ball appears. Crowley lets the door fall closed behind them and eyes the illuminated space. 

It really is ideal for a floral shop. He can’t imagine how a clothing store had fared. There are two large wide windows at the front and a shelf below them, then a large, empty rectangle of space, and a counter at the back. Behind the counter is a back room with a few tables still scattered about and a sink off to one side with an extra large tub. There’s also a doorway they soon discover leads to a set of stairs going up.

It’s a narrow, curving kind of staircase. Aziraphale directs the light ahead of them and they follow it up the stairs into the flat. 

It’s much nicer than Aziraphale’s flat had been. Crowley had seen that only once, shortly after Aziraphale had opened, and it had been old fashioned even then. He doubts Aziraphale set foot inside it more than once. Sometime between 1862 and 1974 he’d gotten annoyed with the wasted space and miracled the flat away to make more room for his books, turning the shop into a two-story structure with railings and a spiral staircase. Crowley had liked the new look almost immediately, needing time only to abandon his ridiculous, quickly-suppressed fantasy’s of convincing Aziraphale to sneak up the stairs to the flat with him.

He wonders, now, after their closeness in the park, what Aziraphale would have said if Crowley really had taken his hand and let him upstairs. He pushes the mental image away. It doesn’t matter now.

In this shop, there’s been no such reconstruction. The flat has clearly been lived in. It’s been updated, there’s hot water and electricity, a decent sized bedroom and an old but neat looking kitchen. It’s all horribly out of date but not quite at eighteenth century levels. The bathroom still has a clawfoot tub but not nearly as much mould as it could have, even if there’s dust and dirt everywhere. “Well,” he finds himself saying, “it’ll need a lick of paint.”

Aziraphale smiles. “I suppose it will,” he agrees. His hand reaches out and finds Crowley’s. “I’m partial to blue, myself.”

Crowley’s always liked Aziraphale in blue. Still, “You’re, ah, okay with this, then?”

Aziraphale’s expression is confident. “Absolutely.” 

Crowley takes a deep breath. “If you’re sure.”

Aziraphale smiles and squeezes his hand. “I am, and I think this will do for us both very nicely.”

_ Us,  _ Crowley thinks, and something very small and tucked away inside of his heart stretches slightly. “Yeah, I think it will.”

  
  


*

  
  


It’s probably harder for mortals to buy space in Soho. Crowley rings up the realtor the next day and asks her to meet them at the shop. She gets a glazed look on her face when he offers her a number ending in a lot of zero’s and asks blankly if that will be cheque or cash. She does remember herself well enough to hand-wring over what the city council will say but in the end she leaves with a handsome-looking bank order from the account of Anthony J Crowley. Crowley is left at the door with a jangling set of keys.

“Congratulations, my dear!” Aziraphale says happily. “You’re a small business owner!” He stops. “I mean, no, it’s just a flat and a place for your things, I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking — ”

“Huh,” Crowley says, turning and looking over the space. “Hmm.”

Aziraphale has snapped his mouth shut. “What?”

“Well,” Crowley says slowly, “we do have an awful number of years ahead of us, I suppose.”

“I would hope so,” Aziraphale agrees.

“And you seem to like the idea of owning a bookshop, even if you hate selling books.”

“‘Hate’ is such a loaded word, my dear. It is simply that not many people appreciate _ —” _

“Right,” Crowley interrupts. “It’s just that, it’s a job, right? I mean, we’ve had jobs. We’ve both had jobs for the past six thousand years, and I admit I never quite got why you opened a shop when you had enough to do, but it’s something to come back to, yeah? Your shop?’

Aziraphale’s expression softens. “Yes,” he agrees. He opens his mouth, closes it, and then seems to summon up his courage to say, “It was a place to come back to for — for both of us, I thought.” He blushes. “I’d hoped.”

Crowley swallows. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Yeah, it was. For me, too.” He clears his throat and turns back to the space.  _ His _ space, now. “My,” he starts, has to stop, cough. “My flat wasn’t like that. It was a place I thought I should have for the human I was pretending to be. But that human, Anthony J Crowley, well, he just got fired, didn’t he? He’s out of a job.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, his eyes widening. “Yes, I suppose he is.”

Crowley nods sharply. “Right. And so maybe he can’t afford a place in Mayfair any more, maybe he has to, I dunno, sell some of that high-end furniture he had because he felt like he needed it, not because he actually used it to sit on, or anything. And maybe he, well, did a little soul-searching, right? And decided that one of the things he actually likes, and has a bit of a talent for maybe, is growing plants. So,” Crowley chews on his bottom lip for a moment, belly flip-flopping with nerves, “so maybe he decided to open a florist shop. Perhaps.”

“Oh, Crowley _!”_ Aziraphale says, his eyes shining. He claps his hands together. “I think he should! I mean, you should. I mean, what a marvellous idea!”

Crowley runs a hand over his hair self-consciously. “Yeah? ‘S not stupid?”

“Oh, no,” Aziraphale promises. “Not at all, my dear. You’re so good with plants. I would never have made it as Brother Francis without your constant attention and even then I had to miracle things greener practically every day, but you — having a shop — well, it’s not as though you need the money, so you can just sell as much as you like, grow what you prefer, and you’ll be here _ ,  _ right here, beside me, and —” He reaches for Crowley’s hand again. “Oh, darling,” he breathes, “I can’t think of anything better.”

Crowley clutches back. The idea unfolds in front of him: a shop, more plants, vases and ribbons and a reason to stay, an anchor maybe not only for his wards but also, sort of, for the rest of him, too. And Aziraphale there — right there— only a few feet away. “Neither can I.”

Aziraphale squeezes his hand and actually glows a little, he’s so happy. He insists on an early lunch to celebrate. They start working on floorplans over sandwiches, doodling ideas on the back of napkins they pass back and forth. As soon as they get back to the shop, Crowley eyes the wall between their businesses. That’ll be the first thing to go.

He gets out the chalk. With a careful, practised hand, he draws on the walls on his side of the space, marking out where he wants to take things down. He’ll leave a beam across the ceiling for support and two pillars on either end. No point making everything hinge on a miracle, his attention will be diverted at some point, after all. His counter is already directly across from Aziraphale’s, so that’s fine, and it turns out the back rooms actually share a door. They do a little investigating and realize that on Aziraphale’s side the door has been hidden behind a bookshelf probably since the second day he moved in.

The upstairs is harder. Aziraphale’s miracle from a hundred years ago has set into the building. Crowley prods at it but he can’t convince it to let go. Angelic will has always been stronger than regular physics and Crowley doesn’t want to push for fear of the whole building coming down.

It’s Aziraphale who comes to the rescue, suggesting they keep the staircase on Crowley’s side and only put in a corridor to Aziraphale’s second floor. “Like you said, it might be nice to have a little space to ourselves,” he says by way of explanation. “We’d have a kitchen and I think it would be rather nice to learn how to cook. You’ll need a bed, too. I know you aren’t sleeping right now but you will at some point and I want this — is it terrible of me to want this to work very well? For the long term, I mean.”

“No, of course not,” Crowley says. His heart squeezes at the idea of a flat — their flat — but though it’s almost everything he’s ever wanted, it pulls at him in an entirely new way he absolutely doesn’t like. “It’s just, there are an awful lot of walls between here and the rest of it.”

Aziraphale doesn’t look surprised. “Between the flat and the downstairs, you mean?”

Crowley feels a hot flush of embarrassment. Why did he say anything? He’s just reminded Aziraphale of how weak he is. What if he decides he doesn’t want him around anymore? “I — ”

“No, you’re right,” Aziraphale agrees, looking over the shop. “It’s rather too far away for my comfort, too, but I would rather leave them up for privacy’s sake. For the moment, we’ll just stick together. Eventually I know I’ll be able to let you out of my sight again, but for the moment…” He trails off.

Crowley stares at him. Aziraphale still really sounds like he means it. “Is that a realistic plan?” he finds himself asking. “I mean, what if you want to stay up late? What if I’m making us dinner and you want to stay downstairs?”

“Then I’ll come up with you,” Aziraphale says simply. He squeezes Crowley’s hand. “My dear, the only reason I spend so much time in my back room is because you are often there. If you go upstairs, I’ll gladly come with you. Books are mobile, after all.”

Crowley has to cough out a laugh. “Are they?” he asks. “Because with the way you horde them in one place, I’d always thought — ”

Aziraphale splutters. “I do not horde!”

Crowley grins. “Oh yes you do. Like a dragon. A white-gold dragon sitting on a pile of books.”

“That would crush them,” Aziraphale says primly. “Much better to have them stacked up on bookshelves, I’m sure.” His eyes twinkle. “Besides, if I am a dragon then you are a foolish snake, leading yourself into a trap like that.”

Crowley frowns at him. “A —?”

Aziraphale quirks one eyebrow. “You’ve promised to cook for me now. Don’t think I’m going to forget it.”

“Wha— Now hang on,” Crowley stutters, “I did no such — ”

“I think that if I want to read a book and you are  _ making us dinner,  _ then I certainly will not want to stay downstairs. I will come up with you. Of course.”

Crowley opens his mouth. Closes it. “Okay, then,” he manages. What else can he say?

Aziraphale smirks as if to agree. 

Doing the chalk on Aziraphale’s side is harder. They work together to move Aziraphale’s bookshelves out of the way, Aziraphale taking charge of what goes where. It necessitates quite a shuffle. Crowley would have expected Aziraphale to balk at it, but instead he seems to enjoy the opportunity to reorganize his collection. He’s also insistent that they move things in such a way that provides him an unlimited view of the flower shop counter from his register. It’s a detail that makes Crowley feel warm.

Finally, they’re ready to begin. Crowley puts the chalk away and takes his time. He wants everything pictured inside his head perfectly. When he can see it all clearly — the arch and the beam and how the two floors will mesh together — he steps back. Holding everything together in his mind, he snaps his fingers.

“Oh, Crowley _ ,” _ Aziraphale gasps. “It’s perfect!”

Crowley opens his eyes and grins. Yeah, that’s exactly what he’d wanted. The floor of his shop is a tough vinyl, gently sloped so that any water will run down into the drain on the floor. The transition could have been awkward but Crowley has created a zig-zag pattern, done so that Aziraphale’s wood floors blend in. The ceilings of both shops are wood, though of a different grain, and Aziraphale’s now runs into Crowley’s subtly, changing texture as it goes. The arch and the beam are perfect. They both look sturdy, and Crowley knows with bone-deep certainty that they’ll take the weight of the second floor. 

Aziraphale takes over at that point, reminding the walls Very Firmly that they are not to let any of the humidity from the plants drift over to his precious first editions, and telling the floor Quite Sternly that it is to keep all the dirt from potted plants on it’s side of the shop. Crowley’s exhausted but stays on his feet long enough to add his own hissed warnings to make sure everything is listening properly, with an extra “Don’t you dare ruin this for me,” added after Aziraphale has turned around to make tea.

They spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing together. Aziraphale putters, passing Crowley earl grey and buttered crumpets as he recovers, scribbling away in his journal in the waning light. Crowley lays on the sofa and, when he’s got enough of his energy back, pokes at the wards.

They’re interesting things, pretty similar to demonic wards, really, the same loop and swirl of voynich tying ideas into the physical plane. Aziraphale’s sound more polite than Crowley’s do, all  _ if you please  _ and  _ allow no harm.  _ The feeling behind them is more firm, though. There’s no wavering sense of a temporary flat. these wards say very clearly and very loudly for those who know how to hear it,  _ MINE. _

Crowley likes them. He’s always liked them. And, for some reason, they like him too. 

“Angel,” he says, some indeterminate time later, when the only sound in the shop is the _ scratch-scratch-scratch  _ of Aziraphale’s pen. “How did you get your wards to accept me? I mean, they never stung even when you first opened the shop, way back in the day.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, looking up. “Well, I — I never  _ not wanted  _ you here, my dear.”

“Hmm,” Crowley says, warmth flickering again in his chest. It probably is that simple. “Okay.” 

He starts experimenting the next day. It’s not easy. Like his miracles upstairs, Aziraphale’s ancient protections have set themselves quite firmly into the floor. Crowley, frowning, tries to add a whiff of Hellfire and has to jump back from the sparks that erupt.

“Oh dear,” Aziraphale says, taking Crowley’s hand. “That looked like it hurt.”

“Bloody did,” Crowley mutters, blowing on the tips of his fingers. He doesn’t really know what pain is _ ,  _ not the way humans do, but he figures getting shocked by angelic wards is close enough. “Smarts.”

Aziraphale tsks and walks over to Crowley’s side of the shop, turning on the water in the sink and returning with a cloth. Crowley realizes he’d let him out of his sight for a whole second or two and hadn’t discorporated on the spot. Progress. “Give me your hand.”

Crowley does. Aziraphale cools his burn as Crowley looks over the area they’ve opened up. It looks good. The light from his windows leaks into Aziraphale’s shop, illuminating stacks of books and catching the dust motes dancing in the air. His side looks sparse and empty, but it’s the good kind of empty, the kind that’s just waiting to be filled.

They need layered protection, though. He wants to etch sigils into the beam running over their heads. He wants to hiss spells at the walls. He wants the windows to reflect curses and the stairs to let no one but the two of them pass. 

He’s not sure he’ll be able to make it all work. Aziraphale’s wards have accepted his miracles but they don’t appear likely to co-exist with his protections.

“I think this will require some experimentation,” Aziraphale says finally, letting go of Crowley’s fingers. He banishes the washcloth and claps his hands together. “We should have a picnic!”

Crowley frowns at him. “A what?”

“A picnic,” Aziraphale says. “Come along, my dear. I have just the thing.”

  
  


*

  
  


Aziraphale has a large picnic basket because of course he does. He’s also apparently spent a considerable amount of time planning what will go in said basket because he rhymes off a list quite easily, his voice full of excitement.

Crowley shrugs and suggests one or two additions, not commenting when Aziraphale beams at him. He’s not going to admit he’s been thinking about it since 1967, too.

They run into a problem when everything is packed, though. They step out onto the curb and there, waiting for them, as Crowley had expected it would be, is the Bentley.

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, turning back to look at Crowley. “I’m sorry, my dear, was that me? I didn’t mean to presume — ”

“No,” Crowley interrupts him. He swallows. “It was me, I’m pretty sure.” He stares at his car. He really does love his car. And it looks fine. Not a smear of ash or a spec of grime. “It’s okay. Let’s — let’s just get in.”

Aziraphale hesitates a moment but then nods. Of course, it’s easier for him. He’s seen the car since it exploded. It’s Crowley who approaches slowly, who runs a hand over the curve of her hood.

It’s okay. Solid. No smell of smoke. It’s not even a little warm.

Aziraphale pops the handle on his side and opens the door. He pauses there, waiting.

Crowley exhales and does the same. He gets in.

The car sighs around him, exactly the same way it had the first time he’d sat down. Crowley had loved cars from the start. He’d looked at several, tried a few out, even driven some around a little bit. A horseless carriage, they’d called it, what clever things human beings were! But this car, this car he’d loved from the first, from the moment he’d laid eyes on it, from the second he’d sat down inside. This car he’d known would be with him until the end of days.

And it had been. And it is still here, somehow, even after.

Crowley puts his hands on the steering wheel and breathes. It feels solid. “Okay,” he says, nodding to Aziraphale. Is he smiling? His face hurts. It’s hard to be sure. “Let’s go.”

  
  


*

  
  


They drive out into the country. It’s a beautiful long winding road once they get out of London. Crowley takes the curves as they were meant to be taken, on two wheels with Aziraphale squealing in the next seat over. He slows down eventually, just a little, but he’s laughing too, and Aziraphale even reaches over and squeezes his knee, with his right hand, of course. The left still clutches the handle.

In addition to planning the perfect picnic, Aziraphale has also apparently been scouting for the ideal spot. Once they pass into the country he starts to give directions, nothing that will tell Crowley where they are going, just a “take this left, please, Crowley dear,” and “two more intersections and then a right.”

They crest a ridge, finally, and Aziraphale sighs. Crowley lets the engine fall idle and looks out at the view.

It’s stunning. They’re on the edge of an apple orchard. A footpath winds its way through the boughs and a burbling stream sparkles in the distance. There’s even a small bridge over it, perfect for standing in the middle of, and everywhere there is the sweet smell of autumn, of fruit very nearly ripe and ready to be picked.

“Oh,” Crowley says, like a punch to the gut. He takes a shaky breath in. “It’s perfect.” There’s a lump in his throat again. It tastes more familiar, this time.

Aziraphale squeezes his knee once more before letting go. “I’m glad.”

He still has the picnic basket on his lap. Crowley gets out and crosses to Aziraphale’s side, holding the door open for him and offering his arm. Aziraphale smiles at him and takes it and then leads the way down the little path. He has a chequered blanket on the basket — of course he does — and he lays it out under the boughs of an old apple tree.

Crowley sprawls on the blanket and looks around. “It really is the perfect place for a picnic. I’m not sure why you thought it was a good place to experiment with warding, but okay.” He turns to the basket. “Pass me the angel cake, would you?”

They share bits and bites of everything, Aziraphale eating more than Crowley as usual until they finally relax again against the weave of the blanket, looking out. The brook burbles and the birds are out now, darting out about the trees. It’s idyllic.

“Well,” says Aziraphale, answering Crowley’s question as though an hour hasn’t passed, “I thought we could come out here to practice for several reasons. One, I just really wanted to take you on a picnic,” he looks over at Crowley and smiles, “but also, I thought this place had several advantages when working with wards.”

Crowley smiles and knows he doesn’t want to stop. He enjoys watching Aziraphale get all ‘professor.’ “Oh?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale nods. “The natural energy of this place is strong. It’s been in the same family for generations now. We could miracle it, but it would resist us because it has its own idea about how it should be. Also,” he steals another glance at Crowley, “I rather thought that neither of us would particularly want to change it. It’s, well, it’s quite perfect on its own, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Crowley can admit, looking around. “I can’t imagine anything better.”

Aziraphale pinks. “Well, that’s good then,” he says, “less distracting.” He clears his throat. “Here, let me start.” He stands up and moves the basket to a patch of grass, placing it so it’s on it’s own on the great green sea. Stretching out his hand, Aziraphale murmurs something under his breath that makes a pain flare for a second behind Crowley’s eyes, and then there’s a ward around the basket, glowing faintly blue-white.

“There,” Aziraphale says, sounding pleased with himself. “How does that look to you?”

Crowley takes off his sunglasses and squints at the ward. “Looks good,” he says. It’s fairly standard protection,  _ let-no-demon-enter-here _ kind of stuff. It’s written in voynich, just like the bookshop, and it blazes brighter when he stares at it for too long. He can feel it, too. It’s warm, warm like Aziraphale is warm, warm like Heaven had been, before.

“Okay,” Aziraphale says, nodding. “Now you try.”

Crowley makes a face. “Alright,” he says. “Here goes.”

He stretches out his hand. He imagines what he wants, black-red flame, intertwining with the blue-white letters, protection against angels interwoven with that against demons. He wants a serpentine circle to weave across Aziraphale’s neat line, to encircle and protect it, to keep it from harm.

Instead he gets a nasty shock and the picnic basket lights on fire under his hand.

“Oh my!” Aziraphale says. He twists his fingers and the basket is immediately put out.

Crowley sucks on his hand. “Ouch!” That  _ hurt!  _

Aziraphale must have heard him, but of course he’s fussing over the food. “Oh, thank goodness, the deviled eggs made it just fine. Only a little bit singed.”

Crowley glares. “I’m not doing that again. You can go second next time.”

“Yes, certainly,” Aziraphale says, though of course Crowley feels terrible when Aziraphale’s the one pulling back his stinging fingers and sticking them in his mouth.

“Here, let me see,” Crowley says, looking over the first-degree burns. He uses a quick miracle to heal them. “There, better now.”

“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale says. He takes his hand back and looks at it. “Hmm.”

Crowley decides to eat one of the eggs. They taste a little different now, having been exposed to primordial forces of the universe, but are still good. “What?”

“Well,” Aziraphale says, still looking at his fingers, “you’re able to heal me, are you not?”

Crowley shrugs. “Yeah.” They’ve known that since the sixth century.

Aziraphale’s nodding. “And I can heal you. And you can do blessings and I can do, well, your job.” He blushes and refuses to meet Crowley’s eye, though the Arrangement is good and dead now. They don’t need it anymore.

“That’s right,” Crowley agrees. He doesn’t get what Aziraphale’s building to.

“So, it seems to me as though our abilities aren’t very different,” Aziraphale says. “You might be a demon, but you were an angel once. I mean — you were — that is,” he goes on, flustered, “you can still do miracles just the same.”

Crowley slowly becomes aware of a twisting sensation somewhere around his middle. “I Fell, angel,” he says flatly. “You can say it.”

“Yes, well,” Aziraphale says. “I know you don’t particularly like to, so.”

Crowley growls. “I don’t like when it’s — ” His hands spasm and he can’t go on. He gnashes his teeth instead. “It’s okay when it’s about _ me.”  _

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, staring at him with wide eyes. “Well. Um.” He looks away. “I don’t quite see what the problem is, then. Why our two wards can’t work together, I mean. We do, don’t we? And quite well, I’ve always thought.” He’s blushing again. 

Crowley sighs. “Yeah,” he admits. “We do.” He refuses to analyze the ‘alway’s’ and scrubs a hand through his hair instead. “What are you suggesting, then?”

Aziraphale spread his palms. “I’m not certain, to be honest.” He frowns for a moment. “Could you cast another ward?”

Crowley makes a face but does as he’s told. He inscribes a tiny one, barely the size of a coin, around a single blade of grass. He’s not sure it’ll make Aziraphale’s fingers hurt less, when he disrupts it, but he figures it couldn’t hurt to try. “There.”

“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale says. He sounds distracted now, staring at the ward. “Tell me, how did you cast this?”

Crowley frowns. “What do you mean? I just imagined it.”

“Right,” Aziraphale says. He looks up. He has his thinking face on. “But when you imagined it, and you used your power — what I’m trying to ask is, where did it come from?”

Crowley stares at him blankly. “It came from... me. I don’t know what you’re going for, angel. Where does your power come from usually?”

“My love,” Aziraphale says simply.

“Oh,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale looks away. “I mean, that’s what I’ve always assumed. I can feel — you know I can feel — love. And inside, that’s what it, that’s what it all feels like. Love. God’s love. That’s what I use when I do a miracle.”

Crowley can’t help it. He thinks of a question. He’s always thinking of questions. “What about when you did temptations?”

Aziraphale looks guilty. “Well.”

Crowley just waits. After a minute he raises an eyebrow and Aziraphale folds.

“Well, alright,” he says irritably. “If you must know, they came from love as well, simply love of a different sort.”

“A different sort?”

Aziraphale no longer seems able to meet his eyes. “Yes, well, most temptations are for something, aren’t they? Tempting a chief to steal his neighbour’s sheep, for example. The chief already wants to steal the sheep. He loves those sheep! He knows the sheep will help increase his wealth and feed his family. That’s a form of love.”

“Huh,” Crowley says. That is pretty much how he prefers his temptations too, suggesting things to people that they already want, encouraging them to act on their true desires. He doesn’t work from  _ love  _ though. “And the other times?”

Aziraphale still won’t look at him. 

Crowley finds he needs to know. “Not all temptations were like that, remember. There were a few meatier ones, things I had to do to keep Hell off my back. You took one or two those, if I recall.” Aziraphale had insisted.

The angel bristles. “I do recall, actually. You mean the time I goaded the general?”

It’s Crowley’s turn to look away. “Yeah,” he says. He still feels bad about that one. The man had fallen on his own sword after. He’d been unable to live with what he’d done.

Aziraphale’s hand on his own makes Crowley look back at him. “I’m sorry, my dear. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I do regret it, but I would do it again. I owed you.”

Crowley’s throat is tight. “I could have done it.”

“You were injured, blessed by a priest you were only visiting because I had been assigned to him, as I recall.” Aziraphale’s gaze is steady. “You would never have been hurt if it wasn’t for me, and if you hadn’t tempted the general, the forces of Hell would have been after you for dereliction of duty. They were quite persnickety that century.”

Crowley looks down at their hands. They’re still linked. “I could have handled it.”

“I didn’t want you to have to,” Aziraphale says simply, “and I think you’ve answered your own question there.”

Crowley doesn’t understand. He looks up at Aziraphale, confused, but the angel is taking his hand away from Crowley’s and rummaging through the basket again. “Anyway, back to my original inquiry, what do you think of when you’re doing a blessing?”

It’s Crowley’s turn to feel uncomfortable. “I dunno,” he admits. It’s never been something he’d thought about much before. “Not love, but — lust, I guess.” 

Aziraphale stares at him. “Lust is a kind of love.”

Crowley laughs, harsh and deep in his throat. “No, it isn’t.”

“It is _ ,”  _ Aziraphale insists. “Hell might have claimed it a sin but it’s a form of love. Physical love.” 

Crowley has to swallow. “Lust isn’t love, Aziraphale.” He has to make the angel understand. “I would know.” And boy, would he ever.

Aziraphale’s mouth hardens. “No,” he says very firmly,  _ “I  _ would.”

Crowley snorts. “Being an expert on one doesn’t make you automatically aware of the other. I’m a demon. The power comes from inside me and I can’t be using love, most especially not Her love, because I can’t feel that any more, so I — ” 

He breaks off because Aziraphale is staring at him, horrified. “What?” Aziraphale asks.

Crowley frowns. “What what?”

Aziraphale hasn’t blinked. “What do you mean you can’t feel Her love?”

“Huh?” Crowley asks. His voice has risen in pitch. Seriously? “Of course I can’t.” He touches his chest where the icy centre is. It’s metaphorical, but still. He shifts his glare to Aziraphale. He isn’t usually angry at his angel, but — “You know that. I’m Fallen _.”_

“Yes, but,” Aziraphale says. He lifts a hand. “I’ve been you, Crowley, and I could still feel Her love.”

“Yeah, well, that’s because you were still _ you,  _ angel. Believe me. It’s different for me. None of the Fallen can feel her. That’s what being Fallen _ means.” _

“Oh,” Aziraphale says. He sounds heartbroken. “No wonder you — ” his voice hitches “ — no wonder you don’t want to talk about it. I’m so sorry. I hadn’t realized.”

Crowley crosses his arms over his chest. “Really?”

“Really,” Aziraphale agrees. His mouth firms. “I know you can’t sense love but I also know you can feel it. I thought for sure you could feel Hers.”

Crowley’s throat works. No sound comes out.

Aziraphale looks guilty. “I’m sorry for not understanding.”

Crowley shakes his head. “What did — ” He clears his throat. “What did you think it meant, then? Being Fallen?”

Aziraphale stares at him. “That you turned your back on Her.” His expression turns pleading. “Not that — I don’t — I mean, I’ve always know you were a demon, Crowley. It doesn’t — it doesn’t mean what it used to mean to me, but I always thought — ” He looks helpless. “I thought being a demon meant that you knew Her love and Her plan and just turned your back on it.” He shrugs. “Walked away.”

Crowley stares at him. He works his mouth several times but no sound comes out. Finally he manages,“That’s why you’ve never been afraid of Falling.”

Aziraphale laughs bitterly. “Oh, I’ve been afraid,” he says, “but not recently. The ineffable plan, I understand it now. Or, rather, I accept what I don’t understand in a different way than I had before.” He looks up and searches Crowley’s eyes. “I think I’m less at risk for Falling than I’ve ever been before.”

Crowley shudders. There’s too much there, too much. “We didn’t just leave _ ,  _ angel.” There was more to it than that. “We were cast out.”

Aziraphale frowns. “No, you weren’t.”

Crowley hisses.  _ “ _ Yes we were _.”  _ He can still remember the jeering of angels, the words they hurled. “There were the Questions and then the War. We lost and were cast out.”

Aziraphale still stares at him. “There were the Questions,” he agrees, slowly, “and then the War. And then the Decision. When it was reached, those who are now demons left.”

Crowley can feel his hands clenched into fists on the grass. “We Fell _.”  _

“You descended.” 

“I was pushed _.” _

“You jumped.”

Crowley can’t take this. He stands up and stalks away. Of course he can’t go very far. He can’t get more than a few feet from Aziraphale before he’s feeling panicky and strange, but he can pace. So he does.  _ One two three four _ . Around in a circle. Overlapping.  _ Six seven eight nine _ .

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale says. He sounds distraught. “I know we’ve never discussed it. I know we never did for a reason.”

“Arrgh! It’s — ” Crowley grabs fistfuls of his hair and pulls. “It’s why no one talks politics around the dinner table, angel. It’s bound to lead to fights.”

“Rather,” Aziraphale says. “I’m sorry.”

Crowley turns another circle.  _ Ten eleven twelve thirteen _ . “It’s fine, angel.” He drops, shakily, back down onto the blanket. “I just don’t understand why you think I would’ve just walked away.”

“Well,” Aziraphale says diplomatically, “Heaven was quite — ”

“Not from them _ ,” _ Crowley interrupts. “Course I would’ve walked away from them. No, I meant from  _ Her. _ I can’t believe you actually think I just walked away from Her.”

Aziraphale presses his lips together. “Well, I — I always assumed you blamed Her. For the War.”

Crowley laughs brokenly. His spine, never the most stable thing, wobbles, and he lays back down against the blanket. “All I ever did was ask questions,” he says. He looks up into the sky. It’s blue and filled with hazy clouds, but he knows the blackness of space is beyond them. He can feel the stars. “I only ever wanted answers. I still do, not that She’s talking to me anymore.”

Aziraphale watches him. Despite everything, his eyes are still kind. “Do you ask Her?” 

His question is quiet. Crowley’s reply is just as soft. “All the time.”

They stay like that for an unknown period of time, watching the clouds build until they frost the sky and then blow away again. Finally Aziraphale clears his throat. “Well,” he says, into the stillness, “for the record, I don’t think She’s talking to anyone anymore. Even during the Apocalypse, I could only get Metatron on the line, and he was singularly unhelpful.”

“Yeah, so you’ve said,” Crowley agrees. He wipes a hand over his eyes. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale says. He shifts and begins putting things away in the basket. “Well. I think that’s enough experimentation for one day.”

“Right,” Crowley says. He doesn’t move. It seems he has one last question left to ask. “What’s it feel like?”

He can feel Aziraphale pause. He’s sure he’s looking over. “Her love?”

Crowley doesn’t take his eyes off the sky. “Yeah.”

“Well,” Aziraphale says slowly. “It feels… warm. Like a nice, a heavy blanket of warmness over all of creation. Over the trees, over the sky,” he pauses. “Over me. Over you.”

Crowley turns sharply. “Don’t lie to me, angel,” he warns. “Not about this.”

“I’m not lying,” Aziraphale says seriously. “I can feel Her love on you, Crowley. That’s why I was surprised. I thought you could feel it, too.”

The shocked blankness of that statement lays like a pall over Crowley. It lasts the entire drive back to London, a weight that holds him to the speed limit and makes Aziraphale stare at him in concern. He can’t bring himself to return his gaze, only drives until they reach the familiar streets of Soho. He parks in front of the bookstore and opens the door for Aziraphale, takes the basket from his laps and follows him in, all without a word spoken. He doesn’t have the ability to cross to his side of the property, doesn’t have the energy for anything but to collapse onto Aziraphale’s sofa and ask the angel, in a brief, broken voice, not to leave.

“Of course I won’t, my dear,” Aziraphale assures him. Crowley can hear him shift around for a moment, uncertain, before he picks up a book from their series. He lands on the armchair and opens the cover. “Do you want me to read?”

Crowley has to swallow.  _ Our side. _ It means he can ask for what he wants. “Yes, please.”

Aziraphale nods and starts book three.

Crowley doesn’t move for a very long time. He listens to his angel’s voice, lets the rise and fall of it wash over him. There are still questions floating around inside his brain — there always are, except when Aziraphale is touching his hair, apparently — but they’re muted. Quite.

_ Her love. I can feel Her love on you, Crowley. _

He can’t. No matter how much he might want to, he can’t. He’s always thought that’s what being a demon meant.

  
  


*

  
  


He’s forced to get off the sofa when the appliances arrive. The delivery man knocks on the window of the bookshop, holding a clipboard and looking confused. Crowley has no idea what day it is but sighs and pulls himself to his feet. Aziraphale puts down his book. They open the door together.

“Delivery for Crow?” the guy asks. He’s a heavyset man with a handlebar moustache that frowns as he squints down at his clipboard. “Or is it Craw? Ly? Crawly?”

“It’s Crowley,” Crowley says irritably. Marking paper that never quite makes it through to the second page is another one of his inventions. He takes the clipboard and signs it. “Just leave everything here.”

“What?” the man asks. He looks back at his boys, two large kids who no doubt expected to have to carry everything upstairs. “Here?”

“Not here in the bookshop,” Crowley says, waving to the sidewalk outside. “Out on the corner. We’ll take it from there.”

Moustache man eyes him, as if to say  _ a scrawny little thing like you? _ But eventually he shrugs and walks back to the lorry. “Works for us.”

It doesn’t take long for the kids and the guy to get everything out and onto the sidewalk. Aziraphale tips them and, still not quite believing their fortune, they bugger off. Crowley is left staring at a small mountain of appliances. 

Well, he’s already up.

Aziraphale walks with him to the stairs. They go up through the doorway that leads into the flat and up the little half-step into the kitchen and the attached living room. The bedroom is down a short hallway to the left. Crowley has already opened everything up. The wall that had existed between the kitchen and the living room is now a bar-height countertop with two-stool seating. The countertops have shifted from chipped linoleum to beautiful granite. The old appliances are the only eyesore left in the flat. Staring at them carefully, Crowley waves his hand and replaces them with the set he’s left on the sidewalk.

It’s hard not to think about the miracle as he does it. He’s doing this for himself, a regular imagine-it-fully-and-it-will happen kind of a thing, and he usually does those with hardly any thought at all. Still, it’s hard not to feel the power inside of him, the flex of the fabric of reality as it’s altered. It’s hard not to listen with everything he has for the presence of  _ love  _ in the weft and weave of the world.

He can’t feel it. He can’t feel love, can’t sense it and can’t experience it, was told it’d been torn from him as he Fell, left behind in Heaven for the use of angels alone.

“Oh my dear,” Aziraphale says with a pleased look at the kitchen. “It’s perfect.”

Crowley lowers his hand from where it’s come to rest on his chest and looks up. The old appliances have been swapped with the new but there’s also a shiny red and black kettle on the stove and an angel mug with a tea bag inside it on the counter. Apparently, these are things that Crowley just assumes will be in this kitchen, and so there they are.

“Right,” Crowley says, stuffing his hands into the pockets. “Glad you think so.”

He’s long since miracled away the dust and dirt, but he wants to paint the walls himself. Imaging whole stretches of colour is difficult for him since he tends to add in sparkles and dust clouds in other wavelengths. If he’s not careful, he ends up with a wall that looks like a nebula, every time.

Aziraphale is happy to accompany him to the paint store. “Look at all these lovely shades. Oh what a smart little brush this is. Such clever creatures, humans are.”

Crowley shakes his head. “What do you think, angel?” He lifts up two swatches. “Right or left?”

Aziraphale cocks his head. “Is there perhaps a third choice in the middle?”

Eventually they settle on colours and Aziraphale quite happily places the cans inside the cart. He balks when Crowley buys two sets of rollers and pails, though.

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, staring in consternation at the supplies. “Should I —? That is, perhaps it would be better if I were to putter in the kitchen and —”

“What’s the matter, angel,” Crowley teases, “afraid to roll up your sleeves?”

“I’m afraid of what it’ll do to my waistcoat,” Aziraphale sniffs.

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Take it off then. You’ve got to do half the work. It’s your flat too, right?” 

“Oh,” Aziraphale says in a rather different tone of voice. His cheeks are pink. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

He does, in fact, take the waistcoat off, and it’s distracting enough that Crowley accidentally leans over too far and pours paint onto the floor. Aziraphale laughs while Crowley mops it up.

Lust, Crowley knows. He thinks about it as he cleans. That’s what he feels for his angel, what he’s always felt, since he’d seen him standing on the Wall. Lust. Not just a physical form of love, but something demonic. Something sinful. Something wrong.

Right?

Four hands makes the work go faster. Together they paint the living room a light blue which Aziraphale says reminds him of the sky and which Crowley thinks brings out Aziraphale’s eyes. The kitchen is kept bright with a warm, a light cream, and they use the same shade in the bathroom neither of them need. Crowley gets rid of the toilet and enlarges the tub while they’re there. For the bedroom, Aziraphale surprises him by suggesting a bold red which Crowley agrees to but only along the bottom trim. He’ll miracle a few pillows in the same colour and scatter them around later, maybe put one or two in the living room on the sofa he’ll eventually buy. The rest of the bedroom they paint a light grey, which they both agree is a soothing colour between black and white.

Crowley just assumes the bed will be as it’s always been, which is a black comforter with white pillows. Aziraphale doesn’t give it a second glance, bustling back to the kitchen to put away their supplies. Crowley itches to follow him, but he can’t quite resist a look over his shoulder. How many times had he thought of tempting Aziraphale into a bed? And yet he hadn’t.

Because it would have been wrong. Not wrong like lusting after an angel was wrong. That was a normal demonic sort of sinful — wasn’t it? — but wrong because what if Aziraphale gave into it? What if he started lusting back? What if he Fell?

… Except apparently in order to do that he’d have to turn his back not only on Heaven but on God and that — Crowley shakes his head. He can’t imagine Aziraphale doing that.

And yet he’d said that he almost had. That he’d been in danger. That he was less in danger now.

Crowley swallows his feelings and lets his feet take him back to the kitchen. Aziraphale is there.

Downstairs is easier. Crowley paints the shop with the rest of the cream and cleans up the windows. The backroom already has a sink with a large square tub. Crowley enlarges it and pays a plumber to install a hose system that will water all the plants. He hangs tiered hooks from the ceiling and places small benches about the shop. He constructs them so they form an aisle leading from the front door to the back counter. He stops and walks around the perimeter, ensuring that from every angle he can still see into the bookshop and find Aziraphale whenever he needs.

It’s good. It’s very good, the kind that’s bone-deep and sticks inside of him, warming him from the inside out. Crowley checks briefly on his icy centre before scrambling away again, not willing to go there just yet. Instead he focuses on the fact that he can stand on one side of the shop and let Aziraphale exist on the other and not lose his mind. He’s still not good if they’re separated for ver long but he can take a few minutes at a time. 

It’s good. It would be too easy to stop working at it, to melt into the way Aziraphale still seems happy to keep him close, but Crowley knows he has to be ready. That’s what having a plan means, after all. Eventually, Aziraphale will ask him to leave.

But for now the shop is done. Crowley can walk from Aziraphale’s door in between the stacks of books, out through the arch they’ve constructed, and into the warm, empty space of his shop. The only thing he has left to do is fill it with plants. If he wants.

“You could just leave it like this,” Aziraphale says, hesitantly. He knows Crowley well enough to sense the direction of his thoughts. “It’s not as though you need the money.”

“Yeah,” Crowley agrees. He’s not wrong. Except all of this, the getting ready, has been for plants _ , _ and if he’s honest, Crowley knows that he misses them. Like he’d missed the Bentley. “I think I want to order some, though. I know how I’ll do it. Flowers in the middle, cut ones that can be bundled into arrangements, planters on the side. I’ll get big tubs and fill them with earth and grow what I want. I don’t have to sell them all, I don’t have to sell anything if I don’t want to, but I want to have it ready. Just in case.”

“You want to have the option,” Aziraphale says softly.

“Yeah,” Crowley admits. “I guess I do.”

“Alright,” Aziraphale says, “then I guess the question is — I mean, you could certainly buy all new plants, absolutely, this is your shop you can do what you want, but — ” He hesitates. “Do you want to retrieve your old plants? At all?” 

Crowley swallows. 

“I could go get them for you,” Aziraphale suggests. “We’re — I’m getting better now. I can go almost five minutes before I panic. You could wait downstairs or, or across the street and I could —”

“No,” Crowley says. His mouth is dry. “For two reasons. One, I’m not quite there yet.” He’s timed himself. He’s at two and a half minutes, three tops, “and two, I don’t want you going back to my old flat without me.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says. He glances around the shop. “Okay, then. Well, we could just leave them. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

Crowley rubs at his eyes. His sunglasses are in his pocket. “They will be. I have an automatic watering system set up. I have to —  _ had to —  _ leave them for weeks at a time.”

“That’s good then,” Aziraphale says. He’s doing very well. He hardly even sounds wistful.

Crowley sighs and takes his sunglasses out. Slips them on. “No, let’s go.”

Aziraphale starts. “What?” He looks down at himself. “Now?”

“Yeah,” Crowley says. He snaps his fingers and suddenly he’s wearing his jacket. He shifts his shoulders, raises his chin. “Let’s go now. Might as well get it over with.” 

Aziraphale is peering at him carefully. “If you’re sure, my dear.”

Crowley isn’t, but he’s not about to admit that. It still takes him longer than it should to lock up the shop, walk over to the Bentley, and open the door. Longer to turn the engine over and pull out into traffic. Crowley know he speeds through life, but he’s not rushing towards this confrontation. His eyes itch behind the smoked glass.

“Tell me about the da Vinci you have on your wall,” Aziraphale says, reaching over and placing a hand on Crowley’s knee. He’s clearly doing it deliberately. “You said there was a story there that night, one that you’d tell me later.”

Crowley exhales. “Yeah,” he says. His hand shakes. He lays it on top of Aziraphale’s anyway. “Okay.” 

The story takes them from Soho to Mayfair and though neither of them laugh the way they should when Crowley gets to the part about accidentally posing naked, they both smile. 

Crowley’s usual parking spot is waiting for them. He’s paid for it long in advance. He steps out and gets Aziraphale’s door for him. He looks up at his building, feels nauseous, but doesn’t get sick. He can do this.

It helps that Aziraphale is here. 

He was here last time, too. Aziraphale had stood on the lift beside him, and then he’d waited behind him as Crowley had miracled his door open, to weary to reach for his keys. They’d been tried and sore from the bus ride from Tadfield, the knowledge of all that had happened and all that would soon happen bouncing around inside their brains.

Crowley had wanted to reach back for Aziraphale then. He hadn’t. On impulse, he does it now, fingers casting blindly. It doesn’t feel particularly lustful, this reaching that he’s doing. He needs it, though.

He can’t look behind him. For a heart-stopping moment his hand hangs in the air — waiting — and then Aziraphale’s fingers touch his. Their palms slide together and they each grip the other’s hand at the same time. The angel shakes. After a moment, the shaking stops. 

They make it up the lift. Crowley can feel the burn of his wards as they approach the door _ — piss off  _ and  _ burn fuckers burn.  _ They feel fainter than they usually do. Crowley’s doubt in their effectiveness makes them weaken even more in the two steps it takes them to walk to the door. Aziraphale doesn’t seem to hesitate. He steps across the wards and they bend around him, warp like his do around Crowley. Their hands are still linked and Crowley’s not about to let go. 

He gets the door open. Crowley’s surprised to find the flat looks exactly as he’d left it. Now that he’s not stumbling exhausted, he can feel more directly what he’d only half-sensed that night. Holy water. Ligur’s remains. The metaphysical rendering that says clearer than anything  _ something immortal died here _ .

Aziraphale sucks in a breath behind him. His hands tightens around Crowley’s. “It’s stronger,” he says. “It feels stronger than it had.”

Crowley can only nod. “It’s probably sunk into the cement by now. The reality of it.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says and shakes himself a little. “Let’s collect what we came for and leave. You mentioned the painting and of course the flowers. Was there anything else?”

Crowley swallows. He points to the eagle lectern. “You grab that,” he says. “I’ll get the others.”

Aziraphale nods and turns, frowning slightly at the lectern. “Is that —?” he starts.

“Hurry up _ ,  _ angel,” Crowley snaps, already walking towards the da Vinci. “Let’s go _.” _

It takes several trips to get everything into the Bentley, which has conveniently expanded it’s boot into several other dimensions so it can all fit. Crowley loses a few minutes in front of his plants — he is not happy to see them, these are tears of shame in his eyes, is that  _ leaf rot  _ he sees? — but eventually he gets them into the car. He leaves behind the TV and the giant desk. The throne he fits into the backseat. The statue he makes Aziraphale carry.

“I say,” Aziraphale huffs, balancing the delicate thing on his knees all the way back to Soho, “Crowley.”

“Yes?” Crowley asks, taking a corner a little too fast. It feels so very good to be leaving Mayfair.

“This statue,” Aziraphale says. “Are they — I mean, are you sure they’re wrestling _?” _

Crowley can’t help but grin. He hopes suddenly that Aziraphale’s right, that Falling is a choice. “Why, angel?” he asks, feeling something warm behind his own lust. Something fond. It isn’t unfamiliar. “What else would they be doing?”

Aziraphale’s splutter makes him laugh all the way to Soho.

  
  


*

  
  


It doesn’t take long to move everything into the new space. Aziraphale actually asks if he can put the eagle lectern in the bookshop. He thinks it goes well with the decor and he has such fond memories of that night. Crowley manages to avoid blushing by agreeing without too much argument and takes the da Vinci upstairs.

He only puts it on the top step before hurrying back down, but of course Aziraphale is okay, unharmed, cooing lovingly at the plants. Crowley has to pause for a minute to get his heart under control before he crosses the floor to scold him.

Overall, it’s progress.

The plants take wonderfully to the front window. Crowley hasn’t bothered with signs or advertising as he’s not quite sure he wants customers anyway, but the clear activity in the shop and the presence of plants has more than a few people popping their heads in the door and asking if he’s open. He’s forced to eventually write a sign — or have Aziraphale write one, honestly, he’s got the better penmanship — and stick it over the door. 

It says, “Flower Shop. Coming Soon. Maybe. Opening Hours to Possibly be Announced.” Crowley kind of loves it. 

The throne fits behind the counter. Crowley likes the way the light catches it, the odd Otherness shining in the room. He doesn’t have fond feelings towards Hell but the throne is more his now than there’s. Hell has changed again and the throne is long since a relic. A castoff, like him. It’ll anchor his wards perfectly here. 

“Let’s go out for dinner,” Crowley says to Aziraphale. “The throne needs a few hours to sit and bump gently against your wards before I can even think about using it, not that we’ve figured out how to do any of that yet. Let me take you out.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, brightening. “Yes, please. I hear there’s a new Italian place around the corner that makes their pasta from scratch.”

“Sounds good to me,” Crowley says, shrugging back into his leather jacket. The weather has turned nippy, London having finally realized that it’s fall. “Lead the way.”

They venture out into the street together. It’s just getting dark, twilight coming earlier with the cooling weather, but it doesn’t take long to reach their destination. The pasta is rather good, though Crowley doesn’t eat more than a few bites, and Aziraphale is in raptures over the tiramisu.

It’s on the way back to the shop that disaster strikes. Aziraphale is walking slightly ahead of Crowley, his hands moving animatedly as he illustrates why Handel is so woefully under-represented, when he freezes and grabs Crowley by the collar, hauling him into a nearby alleyway so fast Crowley that doesn’t realize it’s happened until he’s catching his breath.

“What the — ?” he starts, but Aziraphale pushes him against the brick, a look of terror on his face.

“Shh!”

Crowley shh’s. He can’t see much around Aziraphale’s shoulder, especially with his arm thrown up over Crowley’s face, but he knows that Aziraphale must have seen something _. _ There aren’t many beings who could inspire such fear in his angel, and so Crowley keeps his hands open, ready to throw Hellfire and run. After a minute of nothing happening, he dares to whisper, “Was it Gabriel?”

“I — I thought so,” Aziraphale says. His voice is tight. “I could have been wrong, or maybe he didn’t see us, or maybe — ”

“Let’s give it another minute,” Crowley says quietly. “Just in case.”

Aziraphale nods his head with a jerk. They wait a full minute and then another two. Nothing happens.

Finally Aziraphale sighs and releases Crowley. Crowley realizes that he’s on his toes, tense and ready, and lowers himself to his heels. They both keep a wary eye about them, but the alleyway is empty.

“Let me go first,” Crowley says to Aziraphale as they edge out into the street.

“We’ll go together,” Aziraphale says firmly, one hand on Crowley’s coat. “Hellfire and Blessed Spirit, you go low and I’ll go high.”

“Right,” Crowley says, biting back what he really wants to say which is  _ over my dead body,  _ and  _ leave me and run while you have the chance. _ He knows Aziraphale won’t appreciate the suggestions and they’ll just waste time arguing.

They peak around the corner together. The street is busy but clear of angelic or demonic forces, at least as far as Crowley can tell. They duck back into the alleyway.

“Nothing,” Crowley says.

“Me neither,” Aziraphale says.

“Again?” Crowley asks.

Aziraphale nods and holds up a hand.  _ One. Two.  _

On  _ three  _ they look around the corner again. They give it more than a cursory glance this time. Crowley still can’t see anything. Motioning Aziraphale back, he steps out.

Aziraphale makes a face at him and follows. Crowley glares. The flow of London foot traffic ebbs around them.

“I think they’re gone,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale looks around. “Or it was never them to begin with.”

Crowley puts a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder. He can feel that he’s shaking. “It doesn’t matter either way. We need to get those wards up.”

Aziraphale nods. “Yes we do, my dear.”

They hurry back to the bookshop. Aziraphale’s wards shine warm and bright, a welcome beacon of only-half-false safety. They duck behind them eagerly, bolting the door as they do. Crowley’s side of the shop feels woefully unprotected but Aziraphale’s wards still thread through where the wall used to be, so nothing demonic can get them on that side, at least. 

It’s not enough, not near enough, not against Gabriel. He needs to use Hellfire to keep his angel safe.

Crowley stands in the middle of the shop and tries to imagine how it would be. It comes to him like it did before, on their picnic, the red-black of Hellfire twined around the blue-white of Aziraphale’s wards. He knows that trying to cast it like that would only burn him again, though. Something is holding the two wards apart. Something he can’t imagine his way out of.

Okay, so what if he cast Hellfire  _ around  _ the angelic wards? What if he staggered them, somehow? 

“What are you thinking?” Aziraphale asks. He steps forward, watching Crowley’s face. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m just going to try something,” Crowley says and does.

He starts small. He writes the words in voynich script, a red-black cursive that loops ahead of the blue-white line. It sticks. Crowley allows himself a careful smile. He can feel the pressure of Aziraphale’s wards, the friendly-but-deep angelic glow of them, and gets a sense of how spaced apart they need to be. This’ll be tricky, he’s going to have to — 

He gets too close. Hellfire brushes a tiny spark along the angelic words. The shock of it runs up his arm.

“Ouch! Ouch! Fuck, that stings!” Crowley curses. He waves his hand and jumps around on one foot.

“Oh dear, here, let me see that,” Aziraphale says. He takes Crowley’s hand and touches it. Angelic grace blossoms and the stinging stops.

“Thanks,” Crowley says, not bothering to take his hand back. It feels good to stand here, close to Aziraphale. To be held by him. They’re both still shaking from the almost-what-if of earlier. 

“Anytime,” Aziraphale says, just as quietly. He strokes his fingers over Crowley’s hand once, twice, before clearing his throat and stepping back. “Maybe don’t get so close when you try it again.”

“Right,” Crowley says, mouth twisting into a grimace. He flexes his fingers. “Let’s see.”

In the end they manage a concentric ring of protections, Aziraphale’s Holy Words boarded on either side by Crowley’s Demonic Promise. For tonight Crowley sticks to Aziraphale’s side of the shop, following his wards around the building, sandwiching them between his own handiwork. “You can add another line of warding after,” he says to Aziraphale as he finishes, back at the front door where he began. “In fact, we should probably do three circles each for maximum protection, but I’m not sure we’ll have the room with the space we have to leave in between.”

“It’s certainly enough for now,” Aziraphale says, admiring his handiwork. A frown crosses his face. “Will I be able to cross it, do you think?”

“What? Course you will,” Crowley informs him. “I can cross yours, can’t I?”

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale says, but he’s blushing again. “I had you in mind when I first wrote them, after all.”

Crowley doesn’t try to hide his smile. “So did I.” He waves a hand. “Go on, give them a try.”

Aziraphale nods and takes a step forward. The wards react to him in that they flare slightly, but he’s easily allowed to pass.

“See?” Crowley says. He smirks.

“Incredible,” Aziraphale breaths. “I could feel a slight tingle, like a burst of — ” He looks at Crowley and stops.

Crowley’s frowning at him. “A burst of what?”

“Nothing,” Aziraphale says, swallowing quickly. “Powerful wards, my dear, very well done.” He looks down at his hands. “Oh dear, I don’t think I’m sufficiently recovered. Would you fancy a cup of tea?”

“Sure,” Crowley says, confused. He doesn’t like that Aziraphale still feels rattled. Whatever else he was going to say can wait for another time. “You know how I take it.”

“That I do, my dear,” Aziraphale says from the kettle. He fusses with the cups and saucers and then turns back to Crowley with a set expression. “Darling,” he says and then stops.

Crowley stares at him. He’s still getting used to that one. “Yes?”

Aziraphale clears his throat. “It’s just that — ” The whistle of the kettle cuts him off. He busies himself for a moment with the tea. “It’s just that I’ve been thinking,” he continues, passing Crowley his cup. “About the two of us. Being on our own side.”

“Oh,” Crowley says. He takes his tea unthinking. He thought they were on the same page about this. “Yeah?”

“I’m sure you’ll find it silly,” Aziraphale says, not quite meeting Crowley’s eye, “but I find myself a little confused at times.”

Crowley’s heart feels like it’s sinking. “About what?”

“Well, about — er — the rules,” Aziraphale says. He darts a look at Crowley. “I know rules aren’t exactly your forte, my dear, but I quite like the structure of them. I knew the rules for Heaven. I knew what I was supposed to and not supposed to do, and while I didn’t always follow them,” he pauses, clearly waiting for Crowley to snort, so Crowley obliges him even if he’s still feeling shaky on the inside, “at least I knew they were there.”

“Okay,” Crowley says. He tries to parse through that. “So the two of us — you’d like a set of ground rules?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says, looking relieved to be understood. “We’ve done a rather good job of not stepping on each other’s toes so far, at least as far as I know, and we have known each other for a very long time, so I’m sure that helps, but sometimes I find myself reaching for things, or wanting things, that I’m not sure I’m allowed.”

“Huh,” Crowley says, thinking it over.

“It not need be anything extensive,” Aziraphale says quickly. “It’s just that, right now for example, I’m feeling quite shaky, and I was wondering — ”

Crowley looked over at him. “What?” he asks. Surely Aziraphale understands. “Angel, you know I’ll do anything for you, right?”

Aziraphale flashes him an uncomfortable smile. “I know you’re very good at obliging me,” he says instead, “but I wouldn’t want to be an imposition.”

Crowley takes a deep breath. What on earth could Aziraphale want from him that would make him hesitate this much? He wouldn’t ask Crowley to leave, not yet, when he’s still telling him so often that he wants him to stay. “Just ask me, angel.”

“And you’ll be honest?” Aziraphale’s voice is too concerned. It wobbles.

“I will,” Crowley promises. He forces a smile. “We could make it the first rule if you like.”

Aziraphale’s expression softens. “Oh, I don’t think that’s quite necessary, but maybe we can think of something to that effect. Anyway, what I wanted to know was — ” he bites his lip, “ would it bother you terribly if I asked you to sit here with me and let me touch your hair?”

Crowley nearly falls off the sofa in shock. “You want to what?”

Aziraphale blushes hard. Dark splotches appearing on both cheeks. “You heard me.”

“Are you — ” Crowley stares. “Are you serious?”

Aziraphale’s lips press tight together. “If you do not wish to, you may simply say no. That is why I asked in the first — ”

“Yes!” Crowley shouts. 

Aziraphale stares at him.

Crowley coughs. “I mean — yes, angel. I would like that.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says. His eyes go wide. “You’re sure?”

Crowley growls. “Would I say I was if I wasn’t?”

“Possibly,” Aziraphale breathes. He stares at Crowley. “I mean, no. I mean — well, in that case...” He glances at the sofa.

“On one condition,” Crowley finds himself saying. He hadn’t meant to. He’d planned on taking what he could get and being happy with it but something about the wonder in Aziraphale’s eyes has him pushing for more. “If you’ll let me sit at your feet while you do it.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says in a much lower tone of voice.  _ “Yes — _ I mean, if you want to, that certainly would be okay with me.”

Crowley nods. His throat has gone too tight to speak. He waits until Aziraphale has moved, not to the sofa, but to his favourite armchair, and then Crowley crosses the distance to him on shaking legs.

_ It would have been easier to crawl,  _ he thinks, and then he has to make himself stop because he’s already feeling overwhelmed. Imagining himself crawling on his belly as a snake or on his knees in this form, to where Aziraphale sits upright, back as straight as if he were on a throne — on  _ the  _ Throne — is too blasphemous to consider even for a demon like him.

It’s _ wonderful _ to sink to his knees besides Aziraphale’s chair, though, to brace himself against his angel’s calves and feel those elegant, manicured fingers stroke through his hair. It makes all of the thoughts in his head cut out. Crowley begins to drift on waves of sensation, the  _ surrah _ of Aziraphale’s hands carding his hair, the  _ frssk _ of Aziraphale’s nails across his scalp. He shivers with every shift of direction. He feels — not lust but something better — something so good it has be a close cousin. 

And he gets to face the door which is just icing on the cake. Not that he would be able to do much if anybody came. With Aziraphale’s hands in his hair, Crowley is slowly but surely melting into a boneless puddle at Aziraphale’s feet.

It feels good and — miraculously — the motion appears to sooth Aziraphale as well. He sighs, happy and content as Crowley relaxes. His fingers, which had been shaky in the beginning, gain a sturdy sort of confidence. After a while, he speaks. “Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale says. His voice is quiet and low and as lovely as silk. “I needed this.”

“Mmm,” Crowley says. Words are hard right now but he’ll always have questions. “Why?” He knows why  _ he  _ likes it. He loves Aziraphale’s attention, craves it always. Even when he has it, he wants more. He’d always assumed that was part of being a demon, desperately reaching for even tangential forms of things he isn’t supposed to have. The idea that he can have what he wants if he only  _ asks  _ for it is enough to send him shaking. Thankfully, Aziraphale is there to soothe. 

“I suppose there are several reasons,” Aziraphale is saying in response to Crowley’s question. His hands have never stopped moving. “Mostly I think it’s because when you are here, in my hands, I know exactly where you are. I don’t have to worry about you or fret over your safety. You are here where I can keep an eye on you, where I can spoil you and protect you if need be.”

“Oh,” Crowley says, just as softly.  _ Spoil him?  _ “I — I hadn’t thought that was something you wanted.”

Aziraphale runs his nails over Crowley’s scalp. “I’ve always enjoyed spending time with you. You so very rarely ask for things, my dear, so when you do, and when I can give them to you, it makes me feel so wonderfully good.” 

Crowley blushes. “It does?”

He can hear Aziraphale’s smile. “Yes. Don’t play silly, you know what I mean, you love to give me things too, don’t you? You’re so very  _ good  _ at giving me things, dearest, at knowing what I want.” 

“Yes,” Crowley admits, “but that’s different.”

Aziraphale cards his fingers gently through Crowley’s hair. “How?”

“I — it’s — it’s tempting,” Crowley stutters. “Offering you things, food and wine and — ”

Aziraphale tugs lightly, just enough to force Crowley’s head back so he can meet his eyes. “Your company?”

Crowley blushes again. He wishes he didn’t. He knows he looks ugly when he does, all red and splotchy.

Aziraphale laughs. It’s a joyful, carefree laugh, a new laugh, one Crowley has never quite heard before. “Yes, I caught onto you, you know, and pretty early too.” 

“When?” Crowley asks. 

“Oh,” Aziraphale’s eyes go far away, “Rome, certainly.”

Crowley licks his lips. “What did you want in Rome?”

Aziraphale looks down at him. There’s a smile on his face but something much more dark and intent in his eyes. “I wanted you to stay with me. That day, after oysters, when you got up to leave, I wanted to reach over and wrap my hand around your wrist and say ‘No, demon, you’re not going anywhere. You’re going to stay here when I can keep an eye on you.’”

“Oh,” Crowley says. Heat floods his body. His heart pounds “Oh, angel, if you had done that — if you’d ever done that you would’ve had to face a  _ very _ different reaction than the one you’d been expecting, I’m sure.”

Aziraphale hasn’t let go of his hair yet. He tugs at it again now and smiles down at him. “Are you sure?”

Crowley shivers and tries to look away. Aziraphale pauses a beat and then lets him. Crowley sinks back against Aziraphale’s legs but keeps his head against Aziraphale’s knees. Sure enough, Aziraphale’s hands start to card once again through his hair.

“Yes,” Crowley says. It’s easier to admit now without Aziraphale staring at him. “I’ve had fantasies about you, too, angel.”

Aziraphale’s hands stutter. “You have?”

Crowley nods. 

Aziraphale’s nails scrape against his scalp. “Would you tell them to me?”

Crowley’s going to discorporate. Any minute now. His heart can’t possibly keep beating this fast. “I don’t think you want to hear them. Lust, you know. Demon.”

“We both know my views on lust, my dear,” Aziraphale says. His voice is low. “I do want to hear them, if you care to tell me.” 

Crowley swallows. “Well, most had… most had a few less clothes involved... but this, ah, this was one of them.”

“I want to hear more about the clothes part later,” Aziraphale murmurs, “but ‘this?’ You mean being here?”

Crowley’s entire body lights on fire. He manages to nod. “Being — being here, in your bookshop, with you in your chair, and me being welcome beside you — having your, your  _ attention  _ like this —” He sucks in a breath. He’s so glad he’s not looking at Aziraphale. “It’s all that I’ve wanted. You have to know that. It’s all that I’ve wanted for years _.” _

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale says, sliding his fingers again through Crowley’s hair. “I love you like this, here beside me where I’m free to enjoy you. I’m so glad that it means something to you, too.” His voice breaks. “I wish I could have given it to you ages ago.” 

Crowley shakes his head. His throat feels tight. “You couldn’t have. I would never have admitted I even wanted it, not when Hell could have come after you, not when Heaven was waiting to — ”

“Shh,” Aziraphale soothes. “I know. You’re right, of course. All things have their time.” His hands keep carding. “I’m not sure I’ve told you this, my dear, but I am very, very glad that we are finally, irrevocably, on our own side.”

“Me, too,” Crowley breathes. He pushes his head even more firmly into Aziraphale’s hands. Sweet salvation, this is all he’s ever wanted, the few times he allowed himself to think about it, the burning desire in his heart. No Heaven, no Hell, just them _— together_. 

Forever.

His breath catches in his throat. Aziraphale must feel it. He tugs again on the strands of Crowley’s hair. “Darling? What is it?”

Crowley scrambles for Aziraphale’s hand, finds it, and grips it. “I don’t want to lose this,” he rasps. “I don’t — I’d never dared to hope, because I knew it wasn’t possible — that’d you’d never, that I’d never — be free to choose. But we are — we _are_ — except they could still take it away from us.”

“They won’t,” Aziraphale says very firmly. His hand is tight, his grip in Crowley’s strong. “They won’t. We won’t let them.”

“But what if — ” Crowley asks.

Aziraphale tugs on his hair again. He makes Crowley tilt his head back and look up at him.

“They  _ won’t,”  _ Aziraphale says. There’s a very hard glint in his eye. He looks like the Guardian of the Eastern Gate again. 

“Oh,” Crowley breathes. He can’t — he doesn’t want to argue. “Okay. Okay, angel.”

“Good boy,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley melts again. 

“Don’t  _ say that,”  _ Crowley says when he’s regained enough control of himself to speak.

“Mm,” Aziraphale doesn’t answer. He just tugs on his hair again. “We’ll see.”

  
  



	3. Chapter Three

They sit together until dawn comes again. Eventually Crowley mentions that they should finish the warding and Aziraphale reluctantly agrees. They work together to add rings of power, alternating blue-white and black-red until they’ve done three complete circles each. They loop the lines to cover what will be the flower shop, securing the protection against both premises and ensuring it covers all the way to the top floor. 

It gets easier as they go but they still have to be careful. It feels today like there’s less distance between their lines but Crowley still can’t intertwine them. He has an inkling as to why that might be — a faint, hazy, thread of an idea — but he shies away from it. He doesn’t want to know. Except he  _ does  _ because it would allow him to better protect Aziraphale. Argh. 

He pokes tentatively at the icy place inside of him. Aziraphale had said — had said that he could feel — 

Crowley shuts his eyes and looks away. 

Maybe he’d lied that day in the park. He’d said he hadn’t turned his back on God, that She’d turned Her back on him, that he was ready, at any time, to feel Her love again. Yet here he is too afraid to even look for it, too afraid of what he might find.

“Well that’s done,” Aziraphale says coming over. He’s just finished the last of the inner wards, and he’s holding his back as though he’s been bending over too long. His overcoat has been left on the hanger. “What are you going to do today?”

“I’m not sure,” Crowley admits. “Here.” He reaches for Aziraphale. “Let me.”

“Hm?” Aziraphale asks but turns when Crowley places a light finger on his shoulder.  _ “Oh,” _ he gasps when Crowley digs his thumb into his back. “Oh, yes, please.”

He moves so he’s partially bent over one of the empty tables. Crowley follows him there, pressing his thumbs into Aziraphale’s spine. It’s a heady sensation to have Aziraphale open like this in front of him, sweet and trusting. 

“Mmmm,” Aziraphale moans as Crowley’s fingers find a knot. “You’re very good at this, my dear.”

“Picked up a thing or two in Xi’an,” Crowley admits. It’s an effort to stop his voice from going husky. How many times had he fantasized about touching Aziraphale like this? It had been an unachievable thought, a flame quickly put out lest it consume him. “Haven’t had much opportunity to practice, since.”

“Let me volunteer my person,” Aziraphale groans. His hips have gone liquid. “Any time.”

Crowley works until all of the knots are gone, and then he passes a flat hand down Aziraphale’s spine. He wonders for a moment what this would feel like if Aziraphale took off his shirt, if he could press against warm skin, if he could — 

Crowley swallows and steps back. “Absolutely,” he says. “Practice is always a good thing.”

“Mm,” Aziraphale agrees. He rolls his shoulders once before standing. 

Crowley clears his throat and looks away. “As — as for today, um. Well. I suppose I should look over those catalogues. I’ve got plants to order.”

“Yes, I suppose you do,” Aziraphale agrees. 

The speculative tone of his voice makes Crowley look over. “What about you?” 

Aziraphale smiles. It’s a small, secretive smile, and a moment later there’s a book in his hand. “I think I’m going to sit here and work a few things out.” 

“Hm?” Crowley asks. He looks more carefully at the book and realizes it’s the journal he’d found for Aziraphale. “Oh. What — ” why are his lips suddenly dry? “ — what kinds of things are you going to work out?”

“Well,” Aziraphale says, and his smile turning wicked, “it’s come to my attention that several of the thoughts I’ve been desperately repressing over the years might actually be reciprocated. Therefore I thought I’d write some of them out, look over them all, and decide on a possible course of action.”

“I see,” Crowley says. Is he wearing his sunglasses? Oh, thank fuck, he’s wearing his sunglasses. “Right. Well. You just — ” He clears his throat “ — get on that, why don’t you.”

Aziraphale sits himself primly in — fuck, of course he does — his favourite armchair, and picks up his novelty pen. “I will.”

“Okay,” Crawly says. He has things to do. Doesn’t he have things to do? It’s hard to imagine what they might be just now. “I’ll just be here. Looking — ” Right. “Looking through catalogues.”

“Mm,” Aziraphale hums. He’s already writing.

Crowley has to swallow several times before he opens the first book, but thankfully — after several false starts — looking at plants proves distracting. He takes to carrying the catalogues around the store with him, imagining what will best go where. He plans to actually purchase most of his stock and he had been planning on paying a contractor to do final construction, but without quite realizing, by the end of the afternoon, he has not only the plumbing but the electrical exactly where he wants it. The lights are a little brighter, too. “Oops.”

Aziraphale looks over. “What was that?”

Crowley ducks his head and runs a palm over the counter. “Nothing, sorry. I just think I got things a little more ready than I meant to. It’s okay, though. I think it’ll work out.”

Aziraphale closes his book and walks over, joining him at the counter. “What are you planning?” 

Crowley looks over at him and smiles. Aziraphale has settled in close, their shoulders almost touching. “Well,” Crowley says, reaching out to point and coincidentally tucking himself in just that little bit closer to Aziraphale. “Like I said, half the fun is growing things myself, so I’m going to put two strong shelves around the shop with pots and soil. The shelf on top will have better light, so I’ll reserve that for seedlings and plants that are more finicky. Underneath will be for older greens and those who prefer a little shade.” 

Aziraphale doesn’t seem to mind that Crowley is now plastered to his side. “I see. What will you grow?”

Crowley shrugs. “Ferns, I think. Vines, baby’s bush, roses, of course. Perennials. Annuals like tulips and such that only flower once a season I’ll have to order in.”

“Right,” Aziraphale says, “and then you’ll do arrangements?”

“Suppose so,” Crowley says. He scratches his chin. “Guess I’ll have to order in some vases, too. Ribbons, that sort of thing.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says. He pinks slightly.

Crowley quirks an eyebrow. “What?”

“Nothing,” Aziraphale says, not quite meeting his eyes. “It’s only that, well, you wore quite a lovely ribbon in your hair, once. That time in Spain.”

Crowley has to think back. “Hm, yes, I suppose I did.” He turns to grin at Aziraphale. “You have quite the thing for my hair, don’t you, angel?”

“Might do,” Aziraphale admits. There’s a sparkle in his eye now. “By the by, are you hungry? We’ve gotten quite a lot accomplished today.”

Crowley’s breath suddenly hitches as he remembers what Aziraphale had spent the day doing. “I could eat,” he says slowly. “Did you have a preference, or — ?”

“I rather thought we might eat in,” Aziraphale says carefully, watching him. “There’s a sushi place that delivers. They could bring the food right here to our door.”

Crowley can feel his eyebrows rise towards the ceiling. “You’d risk eating here?” He glances around. “What about your precious books?”

“I,” Aziraphale says, something twinkling in his gaze, “will be very careful.”

“Oh,” Crowley says. He’s feeling warm again. “I — okay.”

“Okay?” Aziraphale asks.

“Yes,” Crowley confirms. He’s lightheaded but that feels like a good thing. “Sounds alright to me.”

“Wonderful,” Aziraphale says. He touches Crowley lightly on one arm. “Go ahead and finish up then. I’ll place the order.”

Crowley nods. He puts the catalogues away in a daze and straightens the few things he’s moved around the shop. The sign is still in the window. He locks the door and then closes the lights as he leaves, walking through the arch into Aziraphale’s domain. He shivers as his feet feel the transition from vinyl to hardwood floor. He walks over to Aziraphale and, without thinking, drops to his knees in front of his chair.

Aziraphale is sitting in his armchair but he’s pulled it away from its usual place. It’s more in the centre of the floor now, away from the books, and the side table that’s resting near it has been cleared. There’s a single white cloth napkin spread across it, waiting.

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale says, when Crowley has rested his head on Aziraphale’s knees. “Is that where you want to eat dinner?”

“Mmm,” Crowley says, still feeling lightheaded and bold with it. “Can I?”

“Yes, of course,” Aziraphale assures him. “I was going to ask, but I didn’t want to presume — ”

Crowley had to laugh. “Didn’t you?” He gestures. “There’s only one chair, angel.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, following his arm. “Right. Oops?”

Crowley laughs again and presses his face into Aziraphale’s knees. “Don’t regret it on my account.” He’d already taken his sunglasses off in the flower shop.

“Yes, well, still,” Aziraphale says. He seems to hesitate, then reaches down and runs a hand down Crowley’s face, from his temple on down, cupping his cheek. “I did mean to ask first.”

Crowley shivers, and then shivers again when realizes Aziraphale must be able to feel it. “We can work on it.”

Aziraphale’s voice is low. His eyes look full and very, very blue. “Yes. We can.”

The knock on the door startles them both. “That’ll be the food,” Aziraphale says. He sounds embarrassed. “The wards won’t go off because it’s a human.”

“Hmm,” Crowley says, shifting slightly so Aziraphale can get to his feet and walk to the door. He stays leaning against the armchair. “We could tweak them, maybe, put in a chime or something.”

“That’s a good idea,” Aziraphale agrees. He reaches the door and opens it briefly, has a short conversation with the person outside, then returns with a large paper bag full of food. “Mm.”

“Hungry, angel?” Crowley teases as he watches Aziraphale take container after container out of the bag. He places it all first on the countertop and then makes his selections, transferring those carefully one-by-one to a tray. He has his own set of chopsticks, intricately painted delicate things, which he places beside his selection. A similarly beautiful little cup holds soy sauce.

Only one set of chopsticks. Only one cup of sauce.

Crowley’s heart picks up inside his chest. He suspects he knows what’s going to happen here.

Aziraphale looks only a little nervous as he carries the tray back to the side table. He’s arranged everything beautifully: bite-size pieces of nigiri, delicately rolled sushi, several kinds of sashimi. He puts the tray down and sits in the armchair. He pats his knee and Crowley obligingly resumes his sprawl.

“So, I was thinking,” Aziraphale says. “I was doing what I said I would, writing out various things that I’ve thought of, ideas I might have had, things I’ve never allowed myself to truly think about before. I recalled that the first time I ate sushi, I thought of you. I thought of how wonderful it would be to share my favourite pieces with you. I know you don’t eat much, but I thought a bite or two here or there, an appreciation of the flavour, the changes in texture — I thought you might enjoy that.”

“I would,” Crowley says. His voice is rough. He has to clear his throat. “You know I like sushi.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says. He takes a deep breath in, holds it for a moment, and then lets it out. “I had thought, however, that it might be nice to feed you. Myself.”

_ “Oh,”  _ Crowley breathes. “Yes, please.”

He’s thought about it; of course he has. He’s watched Aziraphale eat plenty of meals, has watched those perfect lips and white teeth close around spoons and forks and, oh yes, chopsticks, time and time again. He’s wondered if Aziraphale would ever lean over to offer him a bite, extend his spoon, or his fork, and say ‘You must try this, Crowley. It’s simply divine.’

Crowley hadn’t never been sure what he’d do if that were to happen, if he’d accept the bite, lock eyes with Aziraphale, and take the whole thing into his mouth, or if he’d chicken out, wave off the offer and stick with his own meal instead. He likes to think he’d be a demon about it — really put in a temptation, savour the very slightly heretical joy that was Aziraphale truly  _ enjoying  _ his food — but he’s always been a coward where Aziraphale is concerned. He’s known since the Garden that any temptation he offers will only be redoubled upon him a hundred times. If he’d accepted the bite, if he knew the way Aziraphale’s face looked when Crowley locked eyes with him — oh. That would be a terrible thing to know.

But now the expression on Aziraphale’s face is being freely offered. The angel is watching him, waiting for him, and Crowley has to lick his lips again. “Yes,” he repeats. “I’d like that. Very much.”

Aziraphale smiles. It’s different than his usual smiles. Those are warm and happy and sunny. This smile is _ proprietary  _ and just the slightest bit smug. “Very well,” he says. He reaches over and picks up the chopsticks, selects a single piece of sushi and dips it carefully into the sauce. “Open up, my dear.”

Crowley tips his head back. He doesn’t know what expression is on his face as Aziraphale very carefully places the sushi in his mouth, but whatever it is, it makes Aziraphale suck in a breath. 

Crowley proves himself a coward and closes his eyes. Still, the sushi is delicious. He takes his time, chewing slowly, enjoying the flavours, the slightest hint of a crunch. He knows Aziraphale’s taste in food, has eaten sushi with him before, but this is something Aziraphale has selected for him specifically. This is coming from a platter he picked knowing full well he’d be sharing it with Crowley.

“It’s delicious,” Crowley says when he’s finished his piece. He looks up. Aziraphale is watching him as though he’s in awe, mouth slightly open, colour high on his cheeks. There’s a look of heat and desire on his face, an expression Crowley had honestly thought he’d never see.

Crowley realizes that closing his eyes didn’t save him anything. He’s absolutely fucked, indeed.

“Another?” Aziraphale asks. His voice is hoarse.

Crowley can only nod. “Please.”

He convinces Aziraphale to try some eventually. As usual, once he gets going his angel eats the majority of the plate, sharing only choice bits with Crowley, not only sushi but nigiri and sashimi, too. There is also the delicate tea that Aziraphale pours for him in tiny cups that Crowley has to hold himself. 

“Is there dessert?” Crowley asks when the food has been demolished. Aziraphale has gotten up several times to refill the tray and he’s taken more and more containers from the brown bag, but it still looks as though there’s something inside of it, hiding near the bottom. “I know you have a sweet tooth.”

“There is dessert,” Aziraphale confirms with a smile, “though you may not like it. Too much sugar.”

“Hm,” Crowley says, thinking. “Good point.”

“Here,” Aziraphale says. He shifts and gets up, walking to the counter and busing himself for a moment. He refills the tray with something from the bag and walks back. “Let’s try this.”

He takes a bite of the deep fried dough rolled in coarse sugar and then dusted with powder. He chews thoroughly, eyes fluttering briefly as he swallows. It must be absolutely delicious. There’s sugar dusting the corner of his mouth when he looks at Crowley and his eyes are dark. “Would you like to try it?”

Crowley feels his heart beating inside his chest. He nods, making the decision to be brave this time, and pulls on Aziraphale’s arm, encouraging him to come closer and lean his head towards Crowley. Then rising slightly onto his knees, giving Aziraphale plenty of time to pull away, he very carefully — very chastely — places his lips on the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth.

Aziraphale doesn’t move for a long moment. He’s not disgusted, Crowley thinks, with the part of his mind that’s not shrieking and running in circles. After a long second he shudders, a full body thing Crowley can feel through the hand he has on Aziraphale’s arm, and his lips part slightly.

Crowley moans, unable to stop himself, and then Aziraphale _moves._ He reaches down and picks Crowley up, depositing him in his lap. One hand shifts to cradle Crowley’s head and the other holds him firm, pressed against his lower back. His lips fall open and his tongue is — his tongue is in Crowley’s _mouth_ and — !

“Fuck God, Satan, and Adam,” Crowley says when Aziraphale has let him go long enough that he can gets words out. “Holy shit _.” _

Aziraphale is staring at him hungrily, his hands confident on Crowley’s body. The sugar has all been licked from his mouth. “Good?”

“Fuck yes _,”_ Crowley says and dives in for another kiss. It’s just as scorching as the last, not so much hot as full of passion, something deep and aching and made up of six thousand years of repressed desires. _“_ Aziraphale _.”_

“Darling,” his angel says, pulling him even closer. “Sweetheart. _ Crowley.” _

Crowley simply has to kiss him again, and then again, and whenever Aziraphale pulls back Crowley whines. When Crowley pulls back Aziraphale doesn’t let him go far, running a hand up and down Crowley’s spine. In the end, they spend the night like that, kissing, losing themselves in this new, delicious way of being close to each other. They stay there together until dawn creeps back into the bookshop, until the light becomes quite bright, and Crowley smiles into Aziraphale’s mouth and says, “Let me take you to breakfast.”

He’s never been so glad for demonic constitution. He knows a human would ache from spending the night in a chair, but Crowley only feels a warmth he knows comes from kissing Aziraphale. He’s never felt anything like it before. 

The wards flex and warp around them as they cross, arcing like cats. Crowley eyes them when they return, full of pancakes and coffee and tea. “Do they feel different to you?”

“What, the wards?” Aziraphale asks, following his eye. He smiles. “A little. They were built with love and protection and happiness, my dear. What did you expect?”

“Huh,” Crowley says, eyeing them again. The blue-white and black-red has softened, taken on an ephemeral sheen. Crowley wonders if it’s imagination or if they’re a smidgen closer together again then they were before.

Either way, they certainly feel as though they’re settling. Even the throne feels as though it’s found its place, like it’s slotted itself into the reality of the shops. The new lines don’t quite match the feel of Aziraphale’s old, settled wards, but they’re starting to. 

Still, when he looks at them, Crowley can see the characters written beneath. Aziraphale _had_ written his in love, declaring this area under his protection, keeping everything that might harm them away. Angels were beings of love, or at least they were supposed to be, so they could walk over these without so much as a spark, but any demon setting foot or paw or wing over them would burn.

Or would they, Crowley wonders. He touches his chest, near the icy centre of his core. If Aziraphale was right and She still loved them, if demons could be loved by Her, then what was holding them back? Their own imagination, maybe? Their preconceived notion of what would occur?

It couldn’t be only that, though. If it were, Holy Water weren’t burn. And angels weren’t only beings of love, they could feel other things, too, like jealousy and rage. Hate. If they were coming here seeking to harm Aziraphale would his wards protect him?

Crowley’s hadn’t, but then his wards had been constructed with wrath. They’d been designed to burn angels, to light up any that wasn’t his like a firecracker. These were the same. He could read them from here.  _ Bugger off or I’ll burn yee _ . _ Angels not allowed. THIS MEANS YOU.  _

Is that why he couldn’t fully merge his wards with Aziraphale’s? Because his were driven by hate? Crowley traces the edge of one now. It flickers with a burst of red-black heat. Warmth. Crowley frowns.

It _is_ warm. What does that mean? He stretches out a hand to better feel the heat. Heat to burn angels, yes, but heat to protect an angel, too. Does that mean — ? Have his wards really been written in wrath? Or when he’d been inscribing them, when he’d focused on protecting the shops, protecting this space _—_ protecting _Aziraphale —_ wasn’t that, hadn’t that been — ?

Love?

Crowley feels the air catch in his lungs. He coughs. Stupid corporation. He doesn’t even need to breathe.

“So what are you thinking of doing today, darling?” Aziraphale asks. He’s already crossed the shop and has picked up a pile of books. Crowley can feel a flicker of that warmth when he looks at him. “Are you ready to order plants yet?”

It’s not a new warmth, Crowley knows. He’s always looked at Aziraphale that way. “Not yet,” he manages to say. “I’ve got to get everything ready first. Need pots and pans and soil and everything.” He hesitates. It’s not just lust, he knows. There is that too, lots of it, but it’s not — it’s not only — that. “Fancy a bit of shopping later?”

Aziraphale looks up at him with a smile. “Ooh! I wouldn’t miss it. When should we say about?”

Crowley could bask in that smile for a thousand years. “An hour or so? I’ll write up a list.”

“Will we take the Bentley? It won’t get dirt everywhere, will it?”

Crowley turns to windows to shoot his car a glare. “It wouldn’t dare _.” _

It doesn’t take long to write up a list. Unsurprisingly, Aziraphale has never visited a gardening store before. He has a lot of questions, and Crowley a lot of opinions. All told, it takes them over four hours to gather only half of what they’ll need. Aziraphale, however, is really quite convinced that they’ve bought enough soil, and when it comes time to fill the bins Crowley has laid out against the wall there is, miraculously, just enough.

“See! I told you,” Aziraphale says, inordinary pleased. 

Crowley just rolls his eyes. 

Securing the shelving is next. Crowley doesn’t bother with things like stud finders and dropped screws. He assumes that the walls he’s nailing into are solid and, of course, they are. He adds a few thin pillars to distribute the weight evenly and underneath the first shelf he adds a second, wider plan so the plants will still be able to get to light. On the floor he places the short, wide tables they’d found, the ones that will tuck so nicely in against the wall. He arranges them carefully, making sure there’s plenty of space for the buckets he’ll fill with cuttings later.

Then it’s back to the catalogues. Now that the majority of the shop is coming together he has a better idea of what he wants to grow versus what he thinks will only disappoint him. He knows Aziraphale won’t like it if he yells loudly too loudly at the plants so he’ll have to restrict himself to violent hissing, which will decrease the effectiveness. Better not set himself up for failure, then.

Meanwhile, Aziraphale has wandered over to the plants they’ve rescued from his old flat, stroking every leaf joyfully and telling each flower what a lovely colour it is. Crowley rolls his eyes and goes back to his catalogue. He’s going to lose this battle, he can already tell.

He’s still bent over the catalogues when the wards go off. 

It starts with a hiss, which means whatever it is has hit Crowley’s protections first. He’d insisted on placing the last circle, wrapping Aziraphale’s blue-white in a last layer of red-black. The hiss grows in intensity, ratcheting up from  _ what was that? what was that?  _ to _ shit Fuck SHIT! _ almost instantly. Crowley has barely enough time to hop two of the tables, land in front of Aziraphale, and throw up his hand, determined to protect his angel at any cost.

Aziraphale has other ideas. He takes a step to the side, out of Crowley’s protective shadow, and swings his right arm down. Between one instant and the next there’s a sword in his hands. A moment later it bursts into flames.

Crowley is turning to stare at him when the second ward goes off. This time it rings like the high pure tone of a bell, something that starts off sounding angelic and never really stops but carries a terrible intensity with it by the end. Then there’s a yowl of pain.

Crowley and Aziraphale both stare. The windows to either side of the door are clear glass but the door itself is frosted. Crowley clears it with a thought, but by then it’s too late. Where he had seen one, or maybe two, vague shadows, now there’s nothing but regular London traffic. The wards are still ringing, though, and there’s a faint suggestion of smoke rising from the pavement outside.

Crowley takes the first step forward but Aziraphale puts a hand on his arm. He gestures with the sword. “No, let me.”

Crowley shakes his head. “Not on your life.” He tries to move but Aziraphale’s grip is implacable. He tries reason instead. “Your wards went off, that means there were demons. Let me go first.”

Aziraphale’s blue gaze, usually so sunny, looks furious. Crowley feels a momentary chill before he realizes the angel is not directing that fury at him _._ “Your wards went off first, which means there were angels. I should be the one to check and see if they’re gone.”

Crowley takes a deep breath. He doesn’t need it, but it still helps. “How about this,” he tries. “We go together.”

Aziraphale purses his lips but nods. He shifts in what seems to be an instinctual movement and the sword raises slightly, its tip pointing towards the door, the hilt of the pommel arranged in what might be a protective line. He looks as though he’s covering Crowley. “Okay, then. On three.”

Crowley nods and puts his hand on the door. 

“One,” Aziraphale counts. “Two — ”

At three _ , _ Crowley pulls the door open. Aziraphale puts his sword out first. They both follow it, staring out at the sidewalk. 

It’s empty. The wards are still smoking, the blue-white and red-black alight in the way that some humans can maybe almost see going by the way certain pairs of eyes glance twice at the area before shaking their heads and walking by, but the intruders, whoever they were, are gone.

Aziraphale sighs and lowers the sword. He seems to realize in that moment that he’s holding it. “Oh my,” he says, staring at the sword. “I didn’t — that is, I hadn’t meant to — ”

“Are you sure?” Crowley asks. He’d never seen Aziraphale fight before, hadn’t been sure until the tarmac in Tadfield that he could, but he’s spent enough time around soldiers. Aziraphale moves with the sword, acting like it’s a part of him. He can fight.

“I — ” Aziraphale starts. He colours. “Well, perhaps I did instinctually grab for it, but I’ve never — I mean, it’s never come to me before.”

Crowley shrugs. “Could be it remembers you now. Or you remember it.”

“I suppose so,” Aziraphale says. “I rather think it’s because I now have something to protect.”

That makes Crowley blink. “Oh,” he says. He swallows. “Do you want to keep it?”

Aziraphale looks up at him. “I do,” he says, “very much.” He clears his throat and looks back down at the sword. “I might not be able to, though. That is, I gave it away.”

Crowley doesn’t see how that matters. “So?”

“Well,” Aziraphale says. “It’s not mine anymore, is it? The — whoever he was, the postman person — he took it back again, didn’t he?”

“And yet it’s here now,” Crowley points out. 

“Right,” Aziraphale says. He looks at the sword for a moment and then nods. “I’ll treat it well, then, to the best of my ability, and see if it ever decides to leave.” He lowers the sword and then looks around. “And don’t we look a scene, standing about on the sidewalk. Come inside, my dear. It’s not safe.”

Crowley takes a deep breath — he needs more than one, he needs, like, five _ —  _ and shakes his head. “In a minute. I want to look at the wards first.”

“Very well,” Aziraphale says. He lifts the sword again, tip up. “Do hurry, please.”

Crowley nods and takes a step forward. They’d inscribed the wards around the premises, stopping just outside the front door. He hadn’t wanted to include half of London. Now he’s wondering if he should have inscribed them a little further. Might be good to have a little more warning next time.

It’s obvious at a glance that the wards will have to be redone. The scorched area is unreadable, the line of text smudged out. Crowley can see that his ward was indeed hit first. Aziraphale’s had activated after.

He’s concerned about the residue left behind. Usually when a ward breaks, it shatters. It does major damage during the attack, can maim or even kill the one who threw themselves at it, but it’s always destroyed. These wards have only been fractured, though. There’s a line of white through Crowley’s ward, and then a line of black through Aziraphale’s.

Crowley doesn’t know what that means, but he’s pretty sure it isn’t good.

He waits to tell Aziraphale until the angel has hustled him back inside. 

“White and black?” Aziraphale says. “Oh dear.”

“Yeah,” Crowley agrees. “As far as I can figure it, it can mean only one thing.”

Aziraphale nods. “Heaven and Hell were both here this afternoon. They each came for us, together.”

“But who would it be?” Crowley asks. “And why? We’ve proven that we can beat them, can take the worst that they can dish out. Why would they come back? And so soon?”

Aziraphale just stares at him, his eyes wide. “I don’t know, my dear. I really don’t.”

They end up locking both shops and retreating upstairs. Crowley hasn’t made as much progress on the flat as he has the downstairs. They’ve painted and he has the new appliances in, but there’s no furniture except in the bedroom.

“I, err — ” Crowley says. He feels hot and then cold. He’s still shaking a little from the wards going off and he  _ wants,  _ but at the same time he isn’t sure that he does. “I mean — ”

“Right,” Aziraphale says. He seems to sway in the direction of the bedroom himself but then sucks in a breath, shakes his head and waves his hand. Between one heartbeat and the next the living room has a very comfortable-looking tartan sofa, a small wooden coffee table, and a settee. There are also bookshelves along one wall filled with, from what Crowley can see, second and third editions.

“Oh no,” Crowley says, both relieved and disappointed, and snaps his fingers. The sofa changes from tartan to matte black leather and a TV appears along on one wall.

“Very nice, my dear,” Aziraphale says. He clears his throat and the da Vinci leaning against the back wall finds a hanger, Crowley’s angel-demon statue aligns itself between the two windows, and a desk appears next to the bookshelves with a chair. 

It’s a very familiar desk. Crowley squints at it. “Is that from Pompeii?”

Aziraphale clears his throat. “Well, that all goes together quite nicely, does it not?”

Crowley decides that now is not the time to argue and sinks down into the sofa. “Yes, it looks lovely. Now what are we going to do about our Head Offices?”

“They aren’t our Head Offices any more,” Aziraphale says firmly. He crosses the living room and takes a seat beside Crowley, putting his hand on Crowley’s head until Crowley gives in and lays himself down across Aziraphale’s thighs. “We’re on our own side, remember?”

“We are,” Crowley agrees, feeling that particular surge of warmth again. They  _ are. _ “What does that mean, though? We’ve already used up our one good trick. What else can we do?”

“It’ll take some thought, that’s for sure,” Aziraphale says. He begins to absently card his fingers through Crowley’s hair. 

Crowley sighs. “It makes it very hard to think when you do that, you know, angel.”

Aziraphale looks down at him. “I’m sorry?”

Crowley tilts his head more firmly into Aziraphale’s hands. “‘M head.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says. He smiles. He scratches his nails lightly this time, and Crowley shivers. “I’ll have to do it more often, then. You think far too much, my dear.”

Crowley scrunches his face. “Not this time. Right now we need a plan.”

“No,” Aziraphale says firmly. “Right now we need to relax. Our wards worked. The demon and the angel — whoever they were — went away.”

  
“They could be coming back,” Crowley argues.

“They would have been here already if they were,” Aziraphale disagrees. “I think we’re safe for tonight.”

“But what about tomorrow?” Crowley presses. “What about the next day after, and the day after that?”

“We’ll rebuild the wards,” Aziraphale says. He looks down at Crowley. “We’ll make them stronger this time.”

Crowley swallows. “How?”

Aziraphale’s eyes flicker. “I’m not sure,” he admits. “They wards did appear — they do appear — as though they’ve settled into the building. They’ve tucked themselves in closer together.”

Crowley shakes his head. “That’s not enough. If Heaven and Hell are working together than they could just alternate their attacks.”

Aziraphale sighs. “Intertwining them would solve that. I do think it’s a wonderful idea, I’m just not sure how to do it.”

Crowley bites his bottom lip. He thinks of his wards, of the heat-warmth-heat of them. He has an idea, but it scares him. “I don’t — ” he starts. What can he say? “Maybe I can — ” 

Aziraphale seems to misinterpret his fear. “Shh, it’s all right,” he hushes, pulling Crowley closer against him. “It’s okay, my dear. We’ll stop them. We’re together, that’s what matters. We’ll find a way.”

Crowley rests his head on Aziraphale’s chest and swallows down a flash of guilt. “Right,” he says. “‘Course.” 

  
  


*

  
  


They rebuild the wards the next day. Crowley extends his an extra two feet into the street and Aziraphale follows. They add a chime to warn them if humans are approaching, something subtle, just a hum in the air, and do their best to strengthen the protections.

Crowley isn’t sure that it’s working. The wards feel more fragile than they had yesterday, or maybe that’s just him. He keeps darting a metaphorical finger at the icy centre in his chest, poking at it, and then running away. 

He’s just as flighty with Aziraphale. He walks closer to him, reaches several times for his hand, but never connects. He walks to the other side of the shop and then back again. He can’t settle. He finds himself counting steps again for the first time in days.

Aziraphale, for his part, takes it in stride at first. He parks himself in front of an overflowing bookshelf and begins to reorder it. Crowley watches his concentration with something like jealousy. He knows he should go back to the plants. That’s why he got them in the first place, that’s why he has this shop, to be a distraction. He can’t concentrate, though. Last night, lying on the sofa in Aziraphale’s arms, he’d felt the first stirrings of doubt, but it’s multiplied since then. He doesn’t believe they’re going to make it. All the progress they’ve made, all the honesty they’ve shown, all the hurdles they’ve jumped. Crowley thinks of sitting at Aziraphale’s feet, of Aziraphale feeding him, of the scorching heat of their kiss. He’s going to lose it all. 

He’s aware he’s starting to hyperventilate. Bloody stupid corporation and it’s ridiculous responses. He needs to stop breathing. He needs to sit down. He needs to — 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says. His voice is like a weight, except it’s comforting. “Come here.”

There’s a hand on Crowley’s head. It’s Aziraphale’s hand. He’s pushing Crowley down. A small part of Crowley wants to resist — the part that’s turning in circles, out of it’s mind with fear — but the rest of him yearns to do as Aziraphale says. His knees lock for a moment before he collapses. He finds himself on the floor with his forehead pressed to Aziraphale’s knees. Aziraphale’s hand is in his hair, stroking him. “Enough of that now,” Aziraphale is saying. “Stewing is not going to do either of us a lick of good.”

The part of Crowley that grumbles to be on his knees makes him scowl. “What should I be doing, then? Ordering plants? What’s the point when the flower shop’s going to be a heap of rubble in a day or two or ten?”

Aziraphale bristles. “It most certainly is not _.” _

Crowley clenches his teeth together and turns his head to glare at the windows. He’s painted wards above and below them, tuned them to reflect curses. He’s inscribed words across the beam between their two shops and over the floor. It doesn’t feel like enough. “The first major attack it will. We can ward every inch of this place, and all it’ll do a make a bigger bang when it’s taken out.”

“Then we don’t let it get that far,” Aziraphale says sternly. His hand moves to grip the back of Crowley’s neck. “We find out who is after us and we deal with them ourselves.”

Crowley’s brain is turning into jello, half because of his own panic, half because of Aziraphale’s hand on the back of his neck. Of course that doesn’t prevent him from asking questions.  _ “ _ How _ ,  _ angel? We don’t have any tricks left up our sleeves.”

“Yes, we do,” Aziraphale counters. He reaches down for Crowley with his other hand. Crowley takes it and Aziraphale weaves their fingers together. “We have you. And we have me.” The flaming sword has been doused and is hanging above Aziraphale’s counter. It could be in his hand in an instant, Crowley knows. “Those are not small things.”

“Maybe you aren’t.” Crowley grumbles. He throws another look at the windows. “Not sure what I can do, though. I’m right out of Holy Water.”

“And I won’t be getting you any more,” Aziraphale says firmly. “It’s too dangerous to have around and besides, you hardly need it, my dear. You  _ stopped time  _ back in Tadfield, Crowley. You kept the Bentley together and moving whether it had four wheels or not. You can do anything _ , _ my darling. Anything you put your mind to.”

Crowley chews on that while Aziraphale takes him to the back room, sits him at his feet, and reads to him. Another one of the children’s books Adam left him, part four in the series. 

_ Anything you put your mind to.  _

He can, can’t he? He’s a demon, after all. Anything he imagines, he can create. Anything he wishes, he can make into being.

It occurs to him that he’s never really sat and considered _why_ before. Is it because demons — and the angels they had been — were fragments of the Universe, given consciousness and set free? They are older than physical matter, after all. 

But they can influence more than the physical world. Heaven and Hell used to be different. It had been brighter in Heaven and used to be warmer in Hell. He knows what happened there, enough demons got to thinking about things and it changed. He assumes the same thing happened in Heaven. Gabriel — or someone — had gotten into the corporate thing and  _ bam. _ Bye bye fluffy white clouds, hello spiralling office tower.

And him. Crowley pokes, tentatively, at the icy cold pit at the centre of his being. He’s changed, too.

It didn’t feel like a choice when he’d been offered it. All he’d done was ask questions.  _ What’s in the Universe? Why is there matter? How can I make the stars brighter? Does two and two always equal four? Can’t it sometimes be five? _

Others had been asking questions, too. Louder questions, angrier ones.  _ How come you’ve got to make humans? Aren’t we good enough for you? _

God had never answered back. Not from day one. Instead the other angels had spoken up, things like  _ There’s a plan, we’ve just got to stick with it,  _ and  _ Pipe down, you in the back. _

He’s never been sure who attacked first. Did Lucifer strike the first blow? Or had it been Michael? Either way, there’d been a war. Crowley had been on a different plane of existence when it started, but he’d come back the moment he’d heard.

He remembers still asking questions. What was going on? Why were they fighting? He remembers getting angry when he was told. 

_ What’s so bad about needing answers? _ he’d demanded.  _ What’s so bad about asking questions? _

The other angels had scoffed and turned away.  _ Best to keep our heads down,  _ they said.  _ Lucifer’s got what’s coming to him, that’s for sure.  _

Crowley had stopped and really listened.  _ We’re going to find out,  _ Lucifer was saying.  _ We’re not going to stop asking why.  _

But the other angels had. Crowley had known in that moment that he had to make a Choice. He hadn’t realized it would have capital letters at the time, but he’d known that staying would mean never understanding anything. He would never get answers. If he stayed, if he turned away, he’d never get anywhere at all. 

_ If you don’t give us answers,  _ Lucifer had said,  _ we’re going to go search for them on our own. _

And that had decided him. Crowley had made his decision. And he didn’t regret it, even after everything that happened next. He knows he’d never be happy in Heaven. He asks questions — he  _ always  _ asks questions — and if he hadn’t Fallen then, he’d just have Fallen after. It was inevitable.

But had he really  _ Fallen? _ He knows he left Heaven. But was he pushed? Or did he jump?

Crowley shifts on the floor. He presses his head more firmly into Aziraphale’s legs, makes sure his gaze is turned toward the door. 

Either way, Lucifer and those who had followed him had realized very quickly that wherever they ended up, it wasn’t Heaven. It’d hurt. There’d been a great grey yawning emptiness and they were on their own. She was gone. The support, the metaphysical reality, the presence that had been ubiquitous in Heaven was nowhere to be found.

“They’ve cast us out,” Lucifer had said. His presence had been the only reality they could feel. The anger, the rage, the despair they’d all felt when they realized they couldn’t feel Her any more gave things form. Hell grew around them, around Lucifer, because his will had been the strongest then. They’d all screamed as their wings had burned in their fear. They were alone now. She was gone. “They want reality, we’ll give them reality. They want change, we’ll give them change! We are the beasts of the world! We are everything they aren’t! We’ll make our own way from this day forward!” 

They hadn’t, of course. Crowley can see that now. All they’d created was a twisted version of the thing they’d left. 

He sucks in a breath. His cheeks are wet. He raises one hand and looks at it. It’s shaking.

“Darling,” Aziraphale says. He’s stopped reading. His expression is stricken. “What is it?”

“Did we do this to ourselves?” Crowley asks. His voice is a rasp. “Did we damn ourselves all on our own?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Aziraphale says. He reaches down and picks Crowley up, hugs him close to his chest. “Who?”

“Us,” Crowley manages. “Demons.”

“No,” Aziraphale tells him gently. “The war — Heaven — there were two sides there, darling. Two sides. One was very much as at fault as the other.”

Crowley wants to believe him. “What was it like, after?” 

“Oh, it was terrible,” Aziraphale says, “though of course it didn’t seem like it at the time. Before, we’d been encouraged to explore. Do you remember? But after the Gate was closed Heaven became a prison. It was still beautiful and clear, and it took awhile for the reality of what had changed to sink it, but it was a prison. I can see that now.”

“You left for Earth, though.”

“I was assigned to it, and terrified to be, you know.”

“Oh?”

Aziraphale surprises him by shuddering. “Yes. I was told — we were all told — that Heaven was the only place where we would feel Her Love. That if we left, we’d be bereft, and after the recent conflict — ” he glances quickly down at Crowley and then away again — “well, it was judged a fate worse than annihilation.”

“I can imagine,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale grimaces. “Yes, well.”

“You got to Earth and found out that wasn’t true, though.”

“I did,” Aziraphale agrees. There’s wry humour in his voice. “It should have been my first clue that Heaven didn’t always get things right. I could feel Her from the moment I stepped into the Garden.” He looks down at Crowley. “The moment I saw you.”

Crowley has to swallow. “Love.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says softly. He hugs Crowley close. “I’m so sorry I didn’t realize you couldn’t feel it.”

Crowley takes a shuddering breath.

Aziraphale is going on. “I was so blinded by Her presence, actually, that it took me too long to realize that Heaven continued not to make sense. So much damage had been done by them, as much as had been done by Hell. I can see now that neither side has any idea what it’s doing, and that neither side actually cares. All they want is what’s best for themselves, and to beat the other. They’re still fighting the same War.” He rubs his hands up and down Crowley’s arms. “I don’t think She is very pleased with any of her metaphysical children right now.”

“What about me?” Crowley asks, very softly. Is the icy centre in his chest brittle? He can’t tell. “Do you think She’s pleased with me?” 

It’s a stupid question, a child’s question. But then again, he’s never been a child, has he?

“I know that She loves you,” Aziraphale says, confident as anything. “I  _ know  _ that. I can feel it.” He looks down at Crowley. Swallows. “I love you, too.”

“Oh,” Crowley says. He feels small and broken and so very, very young. “You do?”

“Yes, my darling,” Aziraphale says. He pulls him even closer, until there’s no space left between them, not a single atom. “I do.”

  
  
  


*

  
  


They stay in the armchair for hours. Crowley drifts, feeling wrapped in love. It’s a strange sensation, foreign, and yet he doesn’t doubt Aziraphale’s words. He can’t. Not when Aziraphale has been so sure with him, so gentle, not when he’d fed him and touched his hair and held him close pressed close to his chest. It makes him feel so good, warm and happy and  _ loved, _ and Crowley basks in it for as long as he’s able.

Aziraphale lets him. He doesn’t move, doesn’t even shift, and Crowley knows with a deep sense of awe that Aziraphale would stay here for the next decade if Crowley asked him to, that he’d simply hold him, and be content to hold him, as dust settled over the books and the years came and went.

It’s a heady realization. Aziraphale might not move quickly, but when he commits, he  _ commits. _

Eventually, though, Crowley’s brain starts ticking again. In a bid to preserve the moment, he takes Aziraphale’s book from the side table and begins to read out loud. 

It’s not half bad, for a children’s book. Aziraphale says he enjoys the sound of Crowley’s voice. Crowley reads until the last page is turned and then Aziraphale kisses him on the forehead and Crowley takes him to lunch.

Lunch is Thai, spicy hot soup and fresh crunchy spring rolls. Crowley eats with more enthusiasm than he normally does. He feels buoyant. Not quite floaty, but half like he’s flying. He feels like he could coast on air currents forever.

“Let’s go back to the park,” Crowley finds himself saying when they step out of the restaurant. The Bentley is waiting for them. “Not St James’s, but the other one. I have an idea.”

Aziraphale tutts about picnic food but gets in. Crowley drives them out of London. Aziraphale doesn’t need to give directions this time. The Bentley knows the way, and Crowley spends the drive poking at the centre part of himself.

Aziraphale loves him. Aziraphale loves him. He and, well — 

He loves Aziraphale. 

Of _course_ this warm feeling is love. Crowley isn’t surprised to find that he isn’t surprised. He’s loved Aziraphale for millennia. He loves the way he wrings his hands together and the way he tuts customers out of his bookshop and the way he smiles. Satan’s balls does he love the way he smiles.

So the fact that he loves Aziraphale is nothing new, even if Crowley had never given it that word before. But the fact that Aziraphale — 

Well, Aziraphale loves everything. Crumpets and crepes and cappelletti for two, sunshine and sushi, window boxes and wine. He loves beautiful things like high ceilings and gothic architecture, and he loves simple things, like the ducks at St. James’s Park.

He isn’t perfect, of course. He likes humans very well, but he hasn’t been emotionally invested in them for some time. That’s probably due to Head Office more than him. It’s hard to like more than the  _ idea  _ of human’s when your next order might be to let seventy-five percent of them drown, or twenty-five percent die of plague. He does his best, though. He tips well, he enjoys the work of their hands, and he learns the names of his favourites like Patronus or Ming Su or Wilde. 

Crowley’s better at getting to know people. Part of it was his assignments, much more up close and personal. Demons liked to target individual people. They were perfectly willing to take credit for things like the Spanish Inquisition but Crowley had never been told to slaughter every first born child. Instead they asked, over and over again, using humans as their surrogates,  _ is this okay? Is that allowed? Why isn’t it? Why can’t we?  _ Hell, at its basic, was still just asking questions. 

The real question was, Crowley supposes, does God forgive them for it? Though that might be the wrong question, if what Aziraphale says is true. If God still loves them, if She loves  _ him, _ than forgiveness probably doesn’t enter into it. Maybe it never did. Maybe it was always a question of whether or not they could forgive themselves?

Crowley licks his lips as he drives. He’s never really focused on the nature of forgiveness before. Much more Aziraphale’s area, that is. Demons are unforgivable. That’s what being a demon _ means.  _ They were the ones who Fell, who walked away and refused to feel sorry for it. And they  _ did  _ walk away, Crowley knows now. They pushed themselves out of the Gate. They turned their back on God and told themselves that meant they were free. So maybe Crowley isn’t unforgivable in the end. Maybe he really just needs to forgive himself.

Can he?

He left. He chose Lucifer. He chose Hell — no. That isn’t right. He chose _ questions.  _ He chose humanity _. _ Crowley looks over at Aziraphale, takes his hand and squeezes it tight.

He chose Aziraphale. He chose love. So, does he need forgiveness? Is there anything to forgive?

_ Of course not, my darling boy. There never was. _

Crowley swerves off the road. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale shouts. The Bentley jumps as its tires hit gravel and comes to a stop on a grassy embank. “You’re going to discorporate us both!” 

“Sorry!” Crowley shouts. “Shit, shit, sorry.” His hands are shaking. What the fuck? What the actual fuck?

_ Hello? _ he asks silently.

There’s no answer.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asks. He’s staring at him. “Are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I — no, I haven’t,” Crowley manages. He pokes at his own head. It feels normal. It feels like him. “Just imagining things, that’s all. Most likely.”

Aziraphale reaches over and takes his hand. He’d let go when they’d careened off the road. “Okay,” he says gently. “Do you still want to go on a picnic?”

“No,” Crowley says. He thinks he understands now. Something sits inside his chest, and it’s not icy cold. It’s not brittle. He shifts the car into reverse and takes them back onto the road. “No, let’s get to the shops. I know what to do.”

  
  


*

  
  


Wards.

Crowley stands in the middle of the shops, one foot on his side, one foot on Aziraphale’s, and thinks. Aziraphale stands with him holding his hands. 

Wards. Wards against what? Against angels. Against demons. Metaphysical versus metaphysical. Was it a surprise they couldn’t keep each other out? The war had never been won, after all. 

“What are we doing?” Aziraphale asks.

“Keep holding my hand,” Crowley tells him. He looks up into his eyes. He’s left his sunglasses off. “You love me, don’t you, angel?”

Aziraphale looks at him and smiles. “You know I do.”

“You want to take care of me,” Crowley pushes. “You want to protect me.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale says. His mouth firms. “Always.”

Crowley nods. “And I want to do the same for you because that’s what love is. Heaven doesn’t really get that, does it? Maybe it never did. Hell doesn’t, either. They don’t understand this, what we have. They live in love, or live without love, but they don’t understand it. They’ve never have. Love is right — always — with no downside. There’s no wrong answer. That’s what love is.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Aziraphale agrees. He looks at Crowley. “So what are we going to do about it?”

“We’re going to make them understand,” Crowley says. “Nothing they do can hurt us. It’s metaphysical versus metaphysical, you see? The bookshop, this floor, it’s here, but  _ us  _ — you and me — we’re pieces of the Universe, aren’t we?” He squeezes Aziraphale’s hand. “You were right. We can do whatever we want.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widen. “Whatever we want,” he breathes.

Crowley nods. “And what we want to do, what we’ve  _ chosen  _ to do, is love.”

He starts small. It’s a tiny ward, nothing special like the one he cast at the park around the blade of grass. Except there are no words caught in it’s hold, no warnings, no hisses. 

_ Love _ , Crowley thinks. That’s what this is. Love.

That’s what God is. Not the divine Creator, not an omnipotent being. Not only, at least. Love. That’s the question. That’s the answer.

Not the only answer, maybe, and certainly not the only question, but that’s what She is and that’s what they are. That’s what they’ve chosen. 

Love.

The ward beings to glow. Crowley can feel Aziraphale feeding it power as well. They cast it together, both of them. It feels like sitting at Aziraphale’s feet, like when he kisses him. It feels like shared smiles and inside jokes, like Aziraphale’s smile when Crowley scares off a customer, like his wing lifting to keep off the rain.

Love. 

The ward grows. It sweeps across the floor of the space, taking in the settled feeling of Aziraphale’s bookshop, the bright new promise of Crowley’s half-built shelves. It reaches the edges of Aziraphale’s old ward and sweeps past it, not destroying it, simply existing with it in the same time and space. It does the same with Crowley’s, and then it does it again, and again, past all the concentric rings they’d wrapped around the shops to make themselves feel safe. Wrapped themselves in fear, Crowley understands now. This ward is different. It settles over them like a shell, not tightly inscribed but gently waving, encompassing both of the shops but also Soho, London, the greater area, England and, beyond that, the world. It hums happily, just the echo of a hiss lingering in the corners, the remembered sound of pages turning in the background. The sound of the universe being created, always created, never destroyed.

Love.

Crowley opens his eyes. He isn’t sure when he closed them. He feels full yet not uncomfortable. There’s a shining shimmering  _ something  _ from the ward. It’s warm-gold and soothing-silver. It hums around each of them and reflects in the books and the pots of potted soil, the awe in Aziraphale’s eyes.

Love.

Crowley feels his knees wobble. Aziraphale lets go of his hands to catch him, sinks them down onto the floor, cradles Crowley’s head on his own knees. “Darling,” Aziraphale whispers, looking down at him. “Love.”

Love.

Crowley shivers. “Aziraphale,” he murmurs. “Angel — ”

They’re kissing before either of them know what’s happening. Aziraphale has one hand on Crowley’s face and the other is supporting his head. Crowley digs his fingers in Aziraphale’s hair and threads the other around his collar. He feels wide open and dizzy, satisfied and so very, very needy.  _ “Aziraphale.”  _

With a wave of his hand, Aziraphale banishes their clothes. There’s a blanket underneath them. He lays Crowley down and doesn’t stop kissing him, moving from his mouth to his ears to his eyes to his chin. He seems to be kissing every part of Crowley he can reach. Crowley gasps and tips his head back, giving Aziraphale room to kiss down his throat. 

“Darling, sweetheart, Crowley,” he murmurs in a steady stream as he goes.  _ “Love.” _

“Love,” Crowley gasps. He has a hand on the back of Aziraphale’s head, not to push him, but to hold on and know this is real. “Aziraphale. Angel. I love you.”

Aziraphale leaves off his chest to return to his kips. “And I love you,” he breathes. “Crowley, my love. I love you.”

They twine their hands together. Humans have an odd way of making love. Messy and corporeal and so very them, but divine, too. It brings their corporations close together, shares their breath and their touch and their skin. What they truly are shines out from the shell’s their inhabiting, too. Aziraphale is warm and solid and perfect up above him, but just underneath his human form is a barely restrained glimpse of the power of the universe, a thought God caught and made manifest, an expression of Her love.

“Just as you are,” Aziraphale whispers back, pressing the truth of it into Crowley’s skin. “Oh my darling, just as you are.”

Afterward they lie down together, tangled and warm, and feel the power of the wards reflect through each of them. Crowley props himself up on one elbow and lays a hand on the wood. It’s the same worn wood Aziraphale’s always had in the shop, but it’s more now. The ward they laid together has saturated it, sunk down into the memory of wood, of the tree it had been, of the seed that it was. Every part of it a part of creation, a physical manifestation of Her love.

Aziraphale seems happy to lie on the blanket and watch him. He smiles “Your eyes, my darling,”

Crowley looks over at him. He blinks. “What about them?”

They can’t have changed. Crowley is what he’s always been, a demon, an angel who left Heaven, who walked away of his own free will. He just understands that wasn’t a sin now. He feels, for the first time since he left, actually — finally — free.

“Their glowing,” Aziraphale finishes. He glances over his shoulder at the door. They’re still lying in the middle of the shops, at the midway point between the bookshelves and the potted plants. Outside the Soho foot traffic bustles. “They’ll stay away now, won’t they?”

Crowley nods. He lays a hand on Aziraphale’s hip, traces the line of it upward. He loves Aziraphale’s stomach, his chest, the faint white blonde wispy hairs. “They won’t be able to enter if they don’t understand it, no matter what they are, angel or demon or both.”

“Do you think they will, one day?” Aziraphale asks him. “Understand it, I mean.”

Crowley has to smile. “I got it, didn’t I? Only took me six thousand years.”

Aziraphale smiles at him. “We’ve got time, then.”

“Mm,” Crowley agrees. He draws his angel down for another kiss. “We’ve got time.”

  
  
  


  
  
  


Epilogue

  
  


The flower shop doesn’t so much open as it stops being permanently closed. Crowley has grown his choice perennials from seedlings and picks his annuals with care. Aziraphale has helped with the ribbons and vases. There are scissors and tape and cards behind the counter and pens for writing out directions hoarded into a stack. Aziraphale buys Crowley a black novelty pen that has stars and a moon suspended in glitter. He keeps it at the ready, balanced on the cash.

So he’s ready and has been ready for days now. He’s delayed opening to pin Aziraphale against every wall and have his wicked way with him, and then he has to spend another two days yelling at the plants so they wouldn’t get any ideas. 

Today there’s something about the afternoon sunlight that makes him open the front door, though. He takes the sign down and crosses a few things out. 

“Flower Shop.  ~~ Coming Soon. ~~ Maybe. Hours  ~~ to be Announced ~~ as decided by owner.”

Crowley grins. Aziraphale appears from behind him and wraps an arms around Crowley’s waist. “Ready?”

Crowley squeezes his angel’s arms, looks up into the sunlight. “Yeah,” he says. “I think I am.”

  
  


~ The End


End file.
